


Can I tell you something?

by GallaPlacidia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Burlesquedancer!Draco, Cocaine, Drugs, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mdma, Pining Harry, Sectumsempra Scars, Textfic, addiction and recovery but not in detail, letters play a role, seriously a lot of drugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:55:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GallaPlacidia/pseuds/GallaPlacidia
Summary: It's not a party unless Draco Malfoy is there. He's so fun! So wild! So crazy! So many drugs! So many drugs. Too many drugs? Harry's starting to think it's probably a lot too many drugs.This is not a drug addiction recovery fic, although there is a drug addiction recovery.Feat. character development through wide-eyed MDMA trips and Draco Malfoy finding peace as a burlesque dancer.--This fic is a gift to Aylaar, who patiently answers my questions and deserves many things.--Also thank you to Nilolay for last-minute beta-ing when I realised I couldn't I land the plane alone!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Michael Corner/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 635
Kudos: 1576





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aylaar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aylaar/gifts).



> Join my newsletter at newsletter.gallapod.com !

_Dear Potter,_

_I’m writing to apologise for my cruelty and arrogance throughout Hogwarts, as well as for my reprehensible actions during the war._

_I do not write because I expect forgiveness. Rather, I thought you deserved an apology._

_Sincerely,_

_D. Malfoy_

  
Harry was going to write back, until he learnt that Malfoy had written word-for-word the same letter to both Ron and Hermione. 

He threw out Malfoy’s letter and forgot about it.

* * *

The first time Harry saw Draco Malfoy after the trials was at Zacharias Smith’s bizarre country manor house party.

It was nine months after the war, and everyone was a bit on edge. Smith, agent of chaos, had invited their entire year group, and _the Slytherins came_ , the bastards.

Everyone was a bit weird that year, anyway. By ten p.m. Neville was getting head from Parvati Patil in the kitchen in front of a cheering crowd. Harry retreated to the empty library and wondered whether he was a washed-up old man.

“Oh!” said Draco Malfoy, upon opening the door. “It’s Harry Potter!”

His eyes were so dilated they were almost black, his face was pale and thin, his cheeks pink. He floated gracefully into the room, half dancing, with a strange, open expression. 

“Malfoy,” said Harry cautiously. He was trying this new thing where he didn’t hate people. It wasn’t going well. He hated everyone.

Malfoy approached, still looking dreamy and beautiful, like some sort of woodland elf.

“I wanted to explore,” he said. “I can’t believe you’re here.” He made a gentle laughing sound. “You killed the Dark Lord.” He did the strange laugh again. It didn’t sound right, as if he had temporarily forgotten how to do it. “You saved the world. Can I massage your hand?”

“You’re high,” said Harry.

Malfoy looked surprised.

“Yes,” he said. “Can I tell you something?”

“What are you on?” 

“MDMA,” said Malfoy. “Lots and lots. I like your hair. Can I touch it?”

Harry shook his head and sat cross-legged on the long wooden table. Malfoy exclaimed.

“Sitting! Yes! What an excellent idea—ha, ha,” (the same laugh again, where he seemed to say the words rather than do the deed). “Isn’t this strange? Can I touch your hair? You tried to kill me.”

“Don’t touch me.”

Malfoy’s eyes widened. He was utterly, bewitchingly lovely, and his long tapered fingers went to his smooth cheeks.

“I’m annoying you,” he said, sounding grief-struck. “Should I go?”

“No,” said Harry. “I like you better, on MDMA. Maybe you’ll tell me all your secrets.”

Malfoy shook his head, smiled.

“Ha, ha. I am not to be taken advantage of!”

“What did you want to tell me?”

Malfoy had started massaging his own calf and seemed quite distracted.

“Are you sure you don’t want a massage? It feels so good.”

“I’m sure,” said Harry. “You said, ‘Can I tell you something?’”

Malfoy’s hands went to his chest, his face open and sincere. 

“I don’t know if I should tell you. It’s a secret.”

Harry waited.

“Do you still hate me?” asked Malfoy.

“No,” said Harry. “At least. Not intellectually.”

“Oh,” said Malfoy sadly. “But emotionally.” His fingers worked gently at the collar of his shirt. “A lot of people hate me. They send letters.” He looked up. “It scarred.”

“What?”

“Sectumsempra. It scarred.”

This was turning out to be a truly nightmarish party. 

“Snape said it wouldn’t,” said Harry.

Malfoy shrugged.

“Want to see?”

“I don’t want you to take your clothes off, no,” said Harry, although he was keenly aware that this was a lie. But he hadn’t even told Ron that he might be bi, so he certainly wasn’t going to risk Draco fucking Malfoy finding out. 

Malfoy shook his head.

“I don’t have to— look—” 

He took out his wand and cast a quick _Finite Incantatum._

Scars gashed across his face. Painful, angry, red scars, one running across his eye, warping his eyebrow—it seemed a miracle that his eye itself had survived— the other running down the side of his cheek. 

He looked like a slashed painting.

Malfoy was watching Harry’s reaction closely.

“I know,” said Malfoy, when Harry couldn’t speak. “It’s ugly.” He cast the glamour spell to cover them up, so quickly and easily that Harry knew he must cast it every day.

“You—you’ve been hiding it, all this time?” asked Harry.

Malfoy laughed _(ha, ha,)_ and nodded. 

“It’s ugly,” he said again. His eyes grew childishly sad. “Ugly.”

“Malfoy…”

“Can I touch your hair?”

“Okay,” said Harry, but as Malfoy reached forward, the door opened.

“Draco!” said Dean Thomas.

“Dean!” cried Malfoy in delight. He jumped from the table, and took a running leap into Dean’s arms, wrapping his long, thin legs around Dean’s torso.

“I was looking for you,” said Dean, in a similarly daydreamy voice. 

“I just had a deep, meaningful chat with Harry Potter,” said Malfoy.

“That’s amazing,” said Dean. Harry watched on, feeling rather dazed. Dean hoisted Draco up on his hips. “Remember where we were this time last year?”

Draco nodded. His eyes were too big for his face. 

“I think about it all the time,” he said. “All day, all night, all day, all night…”

“Me, too,” said Dean. “Do you want some gum?”

“No thank you. Oh!” Malfoy jumped down from Dean. _(You have a nice body, he told Dean. You do, too, said Dean.)_ He turned to Harry. “I didn’t say thank you.”

“That’s fine,” said Harry hastily. He did not particularly want to prolong time spent with this intense, elfish version of Draco Malfoy. He was still reeling from the shock of having disfigured him. 

“I would be in Azkaban now,” said Malfoy.

“Can you imagine?” asked Dean. Malfoy shut his eyes and shook his head.

“Yes,” he said. “It will make me sad, I don’t want to be sad.”

“Do you want to kiss me?” asked Dean.

“Okay,” said Malfoy, cheering right up. 

“I’m going to check on Ron and Hermione,” said Harry decisively, and left the room. Not before hearing Malfoy sigh contentedly into Dean’s mouth, however, or Dean saying “your lips are so soft…”

  
_Malfoy,_

_I had no idea my curse had—_

Harry screwed up the parchment and threw it away.

_Dear Malfoy,_

_If I had known about your face—_

  
_Malfoy,_

_Not that it makes it any better, but the scars aren’t actually ugly—_

  
_Malfoy,_

_Sorry about cutting up your face—_

  
_Malfoy,_

_Obviously I didn’t mean to fucking disfigure you, I had no idea, is there anything I can—_

  
_Malfoy,_

_Can we speak in person? The coffee shop near the Ministry, tomorrow evening at 6?_

_Sincerely,_

_Harry_

  
Malfoy didn’t answer.

  
_Hey Malfoy,_

_Not sure if you got my last letter, was hoping we could have a chat. It’s about what you told me at Smith’s party._

_Harry_

When that, too, provoked no response, Harry decided there was no point in putting it off any longer. He had to apologise, more for himself than for Malfoy. He was going mad, thinking about Malfoy saying “ugly” and glamouring his scars. 

_Dear Malfoy,_

_I can’t tell you how sorry I am about the Sectumsempra. I was sorry anyway, even before I knew about the scarring. I had no idea what that spell meant and I was terrified when I saw what it did to you. I wish I could undo it. If there’s anything I can do to help with medical bills or whatever, please let me know._

_Sincerely,_

_Harry_

That very afternoon, Malfoy wrote back.

_Dear Potter,_

_Thank you for your apology._

_Sincerely,_

_D. Malfoy_

* * *

  
It was another year before Harry saw Malfoy again. He heard about him before then, however.

“…and then Malfoy showed up dressed as a Russian Czar and started knighting everybody, it was wicked!” said Ron.

“He _is_ fun at a party,” said Hermione.

“He’s _Malfoy_ ,” said Harry.

“Why don’t you come out with us sometime?” said Ron, as if Harry hadn’t spoken. “You never get out.”

“I get out,” said Harry.

“Going to work doesn’t count,” said Ron. 

“I like my work.”

“I’m sure Harry will start socialising when he’s ready, Ron,” said Hermione.

“I’m socialising! I socialise all the time!”

“Eating bagels at our flat every other Tuesday isn’t a social life, mate,” said Ron. 

“Neither is getting plastered with Draco Malfoy every weekend,” said Harry, and Ron blushed. He had been drinking a lot. So had Hermione. So had most people, it felt like. 

Finally, Harry agreed to go to a house party with Ron and Hermione.

Terry Boot lay naked on the dining room table. Eloise Midgen snorted coke off his stomach. 

_Everyone’s gone mad,_ thought Harry. _Completely fucking mad._

There was a large balcony. He sat down on a stoop, tucked out of sight, and decided to wait twenty minutes before leaving, so that Ron wouldn’t berate him the next day.

Five minutes later, Draco Malfoy floated slenderly onto the balcony, clutching Michael Corner’s hand.

“You’re so hot,” said Michael. “I love fucking you.”

Harry made a small, agonised sound, but neither of them seemed to notice. 

“Look, stars,” said Malfoy. He was on MDMA again; Harry could tell from the dreamy quality to his voice. 

“What did you want to tell me?” asked Michael, starting to massage Draco’s hand. Michael was clearly off his face as well.

“I love you,” said Malfoy. 

Harry put his head in hands and sighed, resigned to his fate. 

Also, he was kind of fascinated.

“You’ve never said that before,” said Michael.

“I think it, all the time,” said Malfoy.

“How come you’ve never said?”

“Talking,” said Malfoy, as if that was explanation enough.

“But you will talk, someday,” said Michael. “About the nightmares.”

“Ha, ha,” laughed Malfoy. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

They kissed. Harry wanted to die. 

“Do you want to talk now?” asked Michael. “Would that be easier?”

Malfoy shook his head.

“It will make me sad,” he said. “I don’t want to be sad.”

“But sometimes you have to be,” said Michael.

“No, no, no,” said Draco. “Not me, not ever, ha ha!”

“You worry me,” said Michael.

“Shhhhh,” said Draco. “We should go dance.”

“Okay,” said Michael readily, and they vacated the balcony.

“Even Draco Malfoy’s found love,” complained Harry.

“Well, no offence, mate, but he puts himself out there, you know?” said Ron. It was the second Tuesday of the month. They were eating bagels. 

“If you call dropping Molly five times a week ‘putting yourself out there’, then yeah, he does.”

“I think he varies his drug use, actually,” said Hermione. “Although he does like his coke.”

“ _Why_ do you know so much about Draco Malfoy’s drug habits?”

“We just see him a lot, Harry.”

“More than we see you, to be honest,” said Ron. “You know he comes to Neville’s movie nights?”

“You’re all fucked in the head. All of you. Eloise Midgen, too.” 

“We’re not suggesting you turn into a party animal, Harry,” said Hermione. “But we go to the pub on Fridays. Couldn’t you come to the pub?”

“I go over my case notes on Fridays,” said Harry. 

Hermione tactfully changed the subject. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	2. Chapter 2

  
It was another year before he saw Draco Malfoy again. It was at Zacharias Smith’s country manor house. 

“Why doesn’t anyone fucking LIKE me?” asked Smith, wandering drunkenly through the halls. Harry, who had taken MDMA for the first time an hour ago and was beginning to feel _great_ , grinned.

“It’s because you’re a dick,” he said helpfully. 

“Everyone loves Malfoy, and he’s a fucking Death Eater!” said Smith.

“The whole world’s gone mad,” said Harry, and slipped away. He wanted to find Ron and tell him what a great friend he was. 

The house was huge. He opened door after door, getting progressively higher, and soon he couldn’t hear the sounds of the party at all. He was lost. He was alone. He opened a door, and Draco Malfoy was sitting on the window seat of a pretty blue bedroom, smoking a cigarette through the open window. 

“Draco Malfoy!” cried Harry. He was delighted to see him. Draco! He could say sorry in person now. The words were loose in his mouth.

“Potter,” said Draco. 

“I’m sorry about your face,” said Harry. “I had no idea. How come you wear the glamour? It’s so warm in here. Can I have a cigarette?”

“You’re high,” said Draco.

“Dean Thomas gave me some. You’re friends with him. Isn’t that weird? Because you kept him locked up in your dungeon all those months? It must be weird.”

“Does he have any more?” asked Draco.

“No,” said Harry. “I feel good. I feel so good.”

“Is it your first time?”

Harry nodded, and it felt so lovely to move his neck that he kept doing it. Draco huffed a quiet laugh, a real one, the first Harry had heard from him in years. Or maybe ever.

“Let’s get you back to the party,” he said.

“I wanted to talk to you,” said Harry. “I wanted to say sorry in person.”

“No need,” said Draco.

“Can I see them again? The scars? Without the glamour?”

“No,” said Draco. 

“Do you hate me?”

“No,” said Draco. He stubbed out his cigarette on the outside of the window sill and threw it conscientiously in the bin. “Come on, then, Potter. Let’s find you some music to dance to.”

He crossed the room, opened the door. Harry followed him to the corridor. It was long and empty. 

“Race you!” said Harry, and started running. Draco ran too. They hurtled down the corridor, and Harry reached the end first. “I win! Like quidditch. We should play quidditch!”

“No,” said Draco. “Merlin, you’re fast. Come on.”

“Why do you wear the glamour?”

“Why do you think?” asked Draco. 

“Is it uncomfortable?”

Draco moved his head, noncommittal.

“It itches,” he said. “Like wearing a wig.”

“Have you forgiven me?”

“I think everyone’s through here,” said Draco. He led them to some stairs. Harry sat on the bannisters and started to slide down, but his balance was all funny and he almost fell. Draco’s hands flew to his waist, steadying him. “Hold on,” he said. 

He cast a few charms.

“Okay, now you can do it.”

Harry slid down the bannisters, invisible walls on either side of him preventing him from falling. At the bottom of the stairs, Draco lifted him down.

“You’re strong,” said Harry. “I think I’m bisexual.”

“Okay,” said Draco. 

“Haven’t told anyone yet.”

“That’s understandable.”

“You’re gay. Don’t your parents mind? Did Voldemort hate the gays?”

“I haven’t told my parents.”

“Would they mind?”

“The main hall is this way,” said Draco. 

“Let’s race again,” said Harry. 

They did. This time Draco won. 

But when they got to the main hall, there was no one but Neville, asleep on a couch, and a couple making out in the fire place. 

“Where is everyone?” asked Harry. 

“Gone to bed,” said Draco, frowning. “It’s nearly five. I don’t know why Dean let you drop so late.”

“Dean will be up,” said Harry. 

“Yeah, let’s find him,” said Draco. Harry followed him to the kitchen.

“Your hair’s a nice colour,” said Harry. 

“Where the fuck is Dean?” Draco asked the empty kitchen. 

“I’ll send a patronus!” said Harry. “Expecto patronum!” 

He was so happy that he didn’t have to think of a memory. But his magic was all funny, and what came out was a dazzling but unshaped white mist. It quickly dissipated. 

“Remember when I cast a patronus at you in third year?” he asked Draco.

“I remember.”

“Why did you do that? Dress up as a dementor?”

“Let’s go back to the main hall.”

“Send Dean a patronus, I’m too high.”

“I can’t cast one.”

Harry laughed. It came out all strange and breathy and delighted.

“You would have, if you had been in the DA. Remember how you caught us?”

“I remember.” 

“Are you sober?”

“Yes,” said Draco, rubbing his eyes. “Why aren’t you? Dean didn’t pressure you into taking anything, did he?”

“No, I’ve wanted to for a while.” Harry stared up at the light and twirled around until he was dizzy. Draco caught him by the elbow and stopped him knocking into the table. “My parents are dead.”

“Fucking hell,” said Draco.

“I’m the age my dad was when he died,” said Harry. “Twenty-one. I’ll be older than my father, next birthday. How old is your father?”

“Fifty-three,” said Draco. He was filling a cafetiere with hot water. 

“I hate him,” said Harry. He giggled. “Ooops. Trying not to hate people anymore.”

“Let’s go back to the main hall,” said Draco again, taking the cafetiere and a mug and walking away.

“How come you’re sober?” asked Harry, trotting to keep up with him. “Aren’t you always on drugs?”

“Fuck off,” said Draco, Malfoyishly.

“I’ve upset you,” said Harry, feeling awful, awful, awful, stupid—

“It’s fine,” said Draco, touching his arm lightly. “It’s just a sore point.”

“Sorry,” said Harry. “Are you annoyed now?”

“No.”

“Are you tired?”

“A bit.”

Harry felt sad.

“Will you go to bed?” They had reached the main hall. Neville and the couple had disappeared. Although Harry still felt wonderful, he didn’t like the idea of having to feel wonderful all by himself.

“No, I’ll stay with you until you come down.” He muttered something else. Harry caught the tail end of it: “…hurt yourself.”

He flicked his wand at the record player and electronic music began to play. Instantly, Harry started to dance. It felt great, amazing, good. Draco poured out the coffee into the mug, drained it.

“Dance with me,” said Harry. 

Draco danced next to him, small, jerky, uncomfortable movements. Harry watched him happily. Draco’s pretty hair shone in the early morning light. He was so very, very handsome. Had he always been that handsome? Probably. 

“Can I kiss you?” asked Harry.

“Are you sure you want to?” asked Draco.

Harry nodded enthusiastically. 

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “I’ve thought about it before.”

“Okay, then,” said Draco. Harry came close, pressing their bodies together. Draco was so lovely and warm and hard all up and down. His lips were soft and the kiss was perfect, marvellous, magical.

“It doesn’t feel very sexual,” said Harry.

“Maybe not to you,” said Draco.

“Maybe I’m straight,” said Harry.

“I never get turned on, when I’m on MD,” said Draco. 

“How often do you do drugs?”

“Not that often,” said Draco. “Five times a week, tops. Unless it’s someone’s birthday.”

“That’s loads!”

“It’s just a social thing,” said Draco. 

“Where’s Michael?” asked Harry. Draco looked away.

“How should I know?”

“He’s your boyfriend!”

Draco stared at him. His eyes were so pretty. Harry tried to see where the scars were but the glamour was too perfect. He couldn’t make them out at all.

“You think I would let you kiss me if I was still with Michael?”

Harry couldn’t stop moving because it felt so nice.

“I don’t know,” he said, shifting on his feet, moving his head. “You’re not a very good person.”

Draco stared at him some more.

“You should drink a glass of water,” he said, after a while. “Come to the kitchen.”

“I like the music,” said Harry.

“You’ll get dehydrated. It’s important, Potter.”

In the kitchen, Harry dutifully drank the water Draco gave him.

“Can I kiss you again?” he asked, when he was done.

“No.”

Harry was sad.

“Was I bad at it? I’ve never kissed a boy before.”

“No,” said Draco. “You were very good.”

“Then why not?”

“Let’s go back to the main hall,” said Draco. 

“BROOMS!” said Harry. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed them before! Brooms! “Let’s fly!” He grabbed one and raced out of the kitchen door, into a courtyard.

“No, fuck, no, Potter…!” Draco chased after him. He tried to grab the broom from Harry’s hands. It was such a fun game. Harry was too quick for him. He skipped around the courtyard, holding the broom just out of Draco’s reach. 

“You are too high to fly, Harry!”

“Don’t be so _boring_ ,” said Harry, laughing. 

“Accio broom!” 

The broom slipped out of Harry’s grasp. But there were more brooms! Loads! Just propped up by the kitchen wall!

“Harry, stop, I beg of you…!”

“Scared, Malfoy?”

“Yes, frankly!”

“Come on,” said Harry. “Fly with me!”

Draco bit his lip and thought for a minute.

“Give me a second,” he said. He cast several charms on one of the brooms. “Okay. We can fly together on this one, and it should be safe enough. That way I can keep an eye on you.”

Harry liked the idea of wrapping himself around Draco’s warm body, so he agreed. He clambered up behind Draco and held tight around Draco’s waist. He kissed Draco’s neck as they took off.

“Sorry,” he said, after he’d realised what he’d done.

“It’s fine,” said Draco. “You can keep doing it.”

So Harry kissed Draco’s neck, and Draco steered. Draco flew low and slowly through the cool morning mist.

“Remember the last time we flew like this?” asked Harry.

“Yes,” said Draco.

“This is better.”

Draco laughed.

“Yes.”

“I’m glad I saved you,” said Harry.

“It’s what you do best, isn’t it, Saviour.”

Harry shook his head into Draco’s back.

“Not everyone,” he said. 

“No,” said Draco, so quietly that Harry could scarcely hear him.

“Not Dobby,” said Harry.

“Dobby!”

“A free elf,” said Harry.

Draco’s shoulders were moving strangely.

“You knew Dobby,” said Harry. “I buried him myself. I don’t speak about the war usually. Hermione says I should see a mind healer, but I don’t have the time, who has that sort of time?”

“He walked in on me looking at a picture of—someone, once,” said Draco. “Dobby. I shouted at him while he banged his head against the floor. He hated me.” Draco paused. “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

“I already knew he hated you,” said Harry.

“That’s not…”

Draco shook his head and stopped talking. His breathing was strange.

“Are you crying?” asked Harry.

“It’s the wind,” said Draco.

“I’m sorry about what happened last time I saw you cry,” said Harry, tightening his grip around Draco and nuzzling his back with his cheek.

“Michael broke up with me yesterday,” said Draco.

“You loved him,” said Harry.

Draco didn’t answer. The broom had slowed, and Draco’s shoulders shook and shook. Harry hugged him tightly. 

“What happened?” he asked, after a while. Draco’s shoulders stopped heaving, and the broom sped up.

“I think I see Dean and the others,” he said. 

He was right. The mist had shifted to reveal a glade, where Dean and maybe fifteen other people were dancing and singing and making out. Draco landed softly and removed the spells keeping Harry on the broom. 

“Draco!” cried Dean, springing forward to hug him. “Draco! I _forgive_ you, you know that, right?”

“I know,” said Draco, “you’ve told me before. Thank you.”

“I _forgive_ you.”

“You left Potter all on his own, back there. It’s his first time. He could have hurt himself.”

“We couldn’t find him. We saw the sunrise! Harry! You saved my _life!_ From Draco! And his dad!” Dean turned to Draco. “I hate your dad.”

“Got anymore MD on you?” asked Draco.

“Thought you were quitting?”

“Fuck that.”

“We’re all out, sorry. Come dance with us!”

“I’m going home. Look after Potter, yeah? Don’t leave him alone again.”

“He _saved the world_ ,” said Dean. “Harry! I _love_ you!”

Dean took Harry’s hand and led him to where a girl was doing a mesmerising dance with three lit wands. By the time she stopped, Draco was gone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	3. Chapter 3

  
It took Harry two days to feel human again, but when he did, he felt better than he had in a long time.

He sent Malfoy a note, along with a magnum bottle of champagne.

_Dear Malfoy,_

_Thank you so much for babysitting me the other night. I know I must have been incredibly annoying. I really appreciate it! Seriously._

_Sincerely,_

_Harry_

Malfoy’s response came within the hour.

_N.P._  
_-D.M._

  
This, Harry deduced, meant “no problem”. Such a short letter seemed pretty clear evidence that Malfoy didn’t want to talk to him, but somehow, two days later, Harry found himself writing again:

_Dear Malfoy,_

_How are you doing with the break-up stuff? That shit’s hard. After Ginny broke up with me I didn’t sleep for a week. Which was ironic, because my nightmares were a big part of the reason we broke up. She said I was just existing. Maybe that’s true? I don’t know, I haven’t wanted to think about it too much. I don’t want to feel angry all the time, and if I think I get angry? Does that make sense? I don’t know why the fuck I’m telling you all this._

_I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about the whole, bisexual thing. I’m not even sure if I am. I’ve never really acted on it. I probably won’t, to be honest. Just easier not to, I reckon._

_Sincerely,_

_Harry_

_Dear Harry,_

_Your secret is safe with me._

_D. Malfoy_

_Dear Malfoy,_

_That’s a weight off my mind tbh. Not that I really thought— well, maybe I did worry a bit. No offence, but it is something you’ve done before. Go to the papers about me, I mean. They’ve calmed down about me recently, though. Probably because I don’t do anything anymore. That’s what Ron and Hermione say, which is really annoying, actually, because I’m a fucking good auror and that should count for something. I apprehended a Taiwanese poison-smuggler yesterday, for instance._

_What do you do for a living? Hope you’re feeling better post-break-up, etc._

_Harry_

  
Malfoy didn’t answer that one. 

Nor did he answer the next three letters Harry sent him. 

But after the fourth, he wrote:

_Dear Potter,_

_People are always telling me to Talk About It, too. They can get fucked._

_D. Malfoy_

  
And so began their unlikely correspondence. For every four or five lengthy letters Harry sent, Malfoy wrote him one back, never longer than one line. 

In March, Malfoy sent him an unsolicited letter.

_Dear Potter,_

_Michael and I got back together!_

_D. Malfoy_

Harry stared at the letter for a long time. The exclamation mark. The fact Malfoy had sent it at all. It occurred to Harry for the first time that he and Malfoy might sort of be friends. He wrote to Malfoy in rather the same way someone might write to a diary, and Malfoy wrote back just enough to prove that Harry’s musings weren’t, in fact, lost to the void. But he still hadn’t seen Malfoy since that last party, over six months ago.

He could have, if he wanted to. Malfoy went out all the time. He was at every event, every party. But Harry couldn’t seem to leave his house except for work, or bagels every other Tuesday at Ron and Hermione’s. He tried sometimes, but it felt like he was underwater. That was why he’d decided to try drugs; he wanted to know if that would have made a difference. It had, of course, but it wasn’t exactly a sustainable solution. 

Harry was weirdly unhappy at the prospect of Malfoy and Michael getting back together again. 

  
_Dear Malfoy,_

_That’s brilliant! I’m so happy for you! You guys seemed so in love. You’re really lucky._

_I’d like someone like that. It’d be nice to have someone to come home to. Maybe I should get a cat. I don’t get lonely; I like my own company. I like being alone. It’s good, it’s freeing, really, no one to bother me or try to talk to me, or whatever. I like it._

_Still though, it would be good to have someone to chat shit with in the evenings, you know? Like what you and Michael have. Super happy for you._

_Harry_

On Harry’s twenty-second birthday, Malfoy sent him a card. It was from the unlicensed Harry Potter specialty shop on Knockturn Alley. It had Harry’s scowling face on the front.

 _Happy birthday,_ wrote Malfoy. _Try not to think too much today, yeah?_

Harry was astonishingly touched, although he didn’t mention it in his next letter. He just described being dragged to the pub by Ron and Hermione; how someone had come over to him and wept and described in painstaking detail how their mother had died from complications after a Death Eater’s curse. 

_And people wonder why I don’t go out_ , wrote Harry. 

For an answer, Malfoy sent a newspaper clipping. _Death Eater Draco Malfoy Glassed In The Face By Angry War Victim,_ read the unwieldy headline. There was a picture of Malfoy, his hands covering his face, blood pouring through his fingers. The article noted that this was the fourth time Malfoy had been attacked that year.

 _Shit,_ wrote Harry. _Are you okay???_

Malfoy didn’t answer.

“Oh, he’s fine,” said Ron. “Stuff like that doesn’t scar, you know, not like dark magic.”

“It’s always quite upsetting when that happens,” said Hermione. 

“‘ _When that happens’_?” repeated Harry in disbelief.

“Well, obviously Michael tries to keep him safe, but he’s not always there,” said Hermione.

“Why don’t _you_ keep him safe?”

“He’s all over the place, mate,” said Ron. “ _You_ try keeping tabs on Malfoy at a party. One time he ended up on a boat in Kuwait. We’d only gone to the pub to play darts.”

“So, what, he just gets beaten up by strangers all the time, and that’s fine?”

“I’ve spoken to the Ministry about it several times,” said Hermione. “They say things will settle down eventually. I don’t really know what else to do.”

“He was so drunk that night, anyway,” said Ron, biting into a bagel. “I doubt he even felt it.”

* * *

Harry had been writing to Malfoy for over a year and a half when Ron and Hermione convinced him to come to Hannah Abbott’s birthday party.

“People have chilled out a lot,” said Ron. 

They had. They milled around, drinking from wine glasses. They seemed civilised, grown up. Harry was relieved, but he still felt awkward and out of place when they tried to talk to him. 

He lingered near the snacks table, wondering when Malfoy would appear. Although, maybe he didn’t come to events like this, where no one was swinging from a chandelier. But no—there was Michael Corner, in the shadows near the bathroom, looking fucking miserable, actually.

And then the bathroom door banged open. Malfoy came striding out, gorgeous and sniffing conspicuously. 

“Draco,” said Michael.

Harry didn’t exactly _mean_ to spy on them.

“Michael, darling, hi! I love you! God you look good, fuck, I love you!”

It was nothing like his MDMA voice. Draco sounded bright and sharp, as if he was at the top of his game, except that he talked too fast.

Michael did not appear pleased.

“You promised,” he said.

“What do you want to do, darling, shall we talk about the war? You wanted to talk about the war, I’m ready, what do you want to know, ask me anything, darling, I’ll tell you anything!”

“I wanted to talk to you about the war _earlier_ ,” said Michael. 

Draco laughed. It was sort of a real laugh—more real than the MDMA laugh had been, anyway, except that the cadence was off; it trilled a little too fast, like the heartbeat of a small bird.

“But we can talk now, darling, or we can dance, or we can go home and fuck all night, whatever you want, tell me who you want me to be and I’ll be him, darling!”

“I _want_ you not to be such a fucking cokehead,” said Michael. Draco laughed again; high frequency, false.

“You’re cross because I didn’t share; I’m sorry, darling, I’ll get Dean to give you some—”

“Draco. Listen to me. You _promised_. You _promised_ me we’d go home and talk.”

“We will! Let’s talk now; which ghastly thing shall we talk about first; have you ever tortured anyone? I have! Shall I tell you about it?”

“It’s not about the fucking war, Draco!”

“Isn’t it, oh, that’s good, what shall we talk about next, anything you like, Michael, I love you, you’re so good and steady and kind, you’re everything I want to be, when I grow up I want to be just like you, Michael, darling—”

Michael leant his head against the wall. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said. 

“Yes, it’s a terrible party, hasn’t everyone become boring all of a sudden, there’s a new club in Berlin that’s just opened, I hear they have an enchanted polar bear bouncer—”

“You never talk to me unless you’re on drugs. Not properly. At first I thought… but you never do. And don’t tell me you’re talking to anyone else, either, because I know you aren’t. I’m your only friend.”

Draco laughed.

“What are you talking about darling, why, I saw Goyle just last week!”

“You’re not even on first name terms with Goyle, for fuck’s sake! And as for Dean, when was the last time the two of you spoke to each other sober?”

“Dean! Let’s find Dean, he’ll give you a line or two, and you’ll cheer right up, darling, right up, then we’ll go home and I’ll make you see stars, I’m so good, aren’t I, so good for you, I love you, and you love me, don’t you, you love me?”

“I do,” said Michael. “I wish I didn’t. You’re a coward, Draco. You were a coward in the war, and you’re a coward now. You’re not a real person. You’re just a paper cut-out of a man.”

Draco’s high-pitched laughter was like machine-gun fire. Panic had started to leach into his expression.

“You’re too funny, darling; let’s find Dean!”

“I can’t fix you, Draco.”

“Of course you can, darling, you make me better, I’ll be good and steady and kind one day, just like you, oh God, when you left me, Michael, I thought I’d drown, I was so lost, I didn’t know who I was anymore—”

“You have no idea who you are. You don’t say what you mean unless you’re completely fucking blitzed.”

“No no no no no,” said Draco.

“You don’t even show your real fucking face to me, Draco, and if that’s not an apt metaphor for our relationship, I don’t know what is.”

“They’re ugly,” said Draco, “I’m much prettier this way, darling—”

“They’re _you!”_ cried Michael. “It’s _you_ I wanted, why can’t you see… oh, fucking hell, I should never have…I can’t…you’re breaking my heart…”

Dean came bounding over, not seeming to notice that Michael was on the verge of tears, and that Draco was snorting and tossing his head like a horse getting ready to run. 

“Cheeky top-up, boys?”

“Draco,” said Michael, but Draco couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Go on then,” said Draco, and followed Dean into the bathroom. 

Michael stared as they shut the door, then made his way out of the party, wiping his cheeks just once, quickly.

Harry walked home, stunned and empty-feeling. He had waited until Draco came out of the bathroom again, but one look at Draco’s huge, swollen pupils, at his chattering teeth, at his sniffing nose, had shown Harry that nothing useful could be accomplished that night.

He wasn’t surprised at how much he cared. He had known for a while, really. Their strange, one-sided pen-pal relationship had grown important to Harry long ago.

Draco didn’t have any friends, Michael had said, but he was wrong. Draco had Harry. Harry wanted to make sure Draco knew that. 

_Dear Draco,_

_I’m really sorry, but I overheard you and Michael fighting at Hannah Abbott’s birthday party, so I know you two have broken up or whatever. I just wanted to reach out and check if you’re okay?_

_Michael was bang out of order with a lot of what he said, but… you do seem a bit in over your head, mate. I wish you’d take a breather. The way you were last night, it didn’t seem like partying. It seemed a lot scarier than that._

_I’m worried about you._

_Harry_

Draco, rather predictably, did not answer. Nor did he answer Harry’s next letter, nor the one after that. 

Finally, Harry went to the Friday pub night, so he could ask Dean.

“Is Malfoy all right?”

Dean shrugged.

“Haven’t seen him in ages,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“Apparently he ran away, or something. His parents called me up in a panic about a week ago. He and Michael broke up, and Draco just up and left.”

“Left _where?”_

“I don’t know,” said Dean. “I don’t really know him all that well.”

  
_Just let me know if you’re alive,_ wrote Harry. _Please. I don’t even know if you’re getting these._

Except, his owl always returned without the letter, which suggested she had delivered it somewhere.

Nearly two weeks later, a postcard arrived at Grimmauld Place. It was from the British museum, but had been sent, bizarrely, from Minneapolis. 

_I’m alive._

_D. M._

Harry continued to send the letters, but he never heard back from Draco again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	4. Chapter 4

At twenty-six, Harry was made the youngest divisional head of aurors since the 18th century. 

He walked out of the office that evening feeling strangely blank. He did not apparate home. He simply wandered out of Wizarding London into muggle London, letting his feet guide him. His mind was empty.

There was no one to celebrate with. He would see Ron and Hermione on Tuesday for bagels. He would tell them then. They wouldn’t be all that happy, in any case. They had both developed an unnerving habit of becoming _cautious_ when Harry brought up work, because they didn’t want to get into another fight with him about it. 

He got on the tube. He got off the tube. He walked through a park. He got on a bus. He walked some more. 

“Show starting in ten minutes?” said an eager young boy wearing a full face of make-up, pressing a flyer into Harry’s hands. Harry nodded and the boy ushered him into a nightclub—a gay nightclub, Harry guessed, judging by the clientele. The boy pointed up some stairs. Was it stripping? Was it gay stripping?

It did, in fact, turn out to be gay stripping. It was a burlesque show. Harry sat at the back. He’d never seen burlesque before, but he had a feeling this particular show was not representative of the art form as a whole. It was _wild_. A woman came on in a swan costume and tore off all her feathers with her mouth. A fire dancer burned his paper costume to a crisp while it was still on his body. One act appeared to be a series of nightclub in-jokes that the crowded room all understood, but made no sense whatsoever to Harry. 

It was dark, and Harry felt pleasingly anonymous. 

“Youths and non-youths,” said the M.C., who had found different, inventive ways of avoiding saying “Ladies and Gentlemen” each time they came on the stage. “I now present to you, our headline act, the sublime, the sensual, _Bellatrix Lestrange!”_

The crowd erupted in cheers.

Harry had misheard. He was quite sure he had misheard. 

A buzzing sense of anticipation had settled on the crowd, different from how it had been before every other act. Smoke curled out onto the stage. Eerie, otherworldly music began to play, and a black silk cloud took form. 

The black silk was thin and gently undulating. It reminded Harry horribly of dementors, particularly when it became apparent that there was a person underneath, and that they were trying to get free, with unpredictable, fish-like movements. The entire thing looked as if it was taking place under water, and the more the creature beneath the silk struggled to escape, the clearer its shape became. It was tall, seemed to have long, jointless fingers, half a foot each, and it was supremely, unutterably fluid.

The music built, and suddenly, one of those long, knifelike fingers ripped its way through the silk. It widened the tear, more and more fingers appearing, and Harry realised that they really were knives, long, thin knives that had somehow been attached to smooth grey gloves, and then the creature tore free of the silk. 

Harry realised three things, as the watery fabric pooled to the floor in dark folds:

1\. Draco Malfoy was a burlesque dancer now

2\. Draco Malfoy was the most dizzyingly attractive person Harry had ever seen, and

3\. Draco Malfoy was no longer hiding his scars.

In fact, he had emphasised them. He had carved his face out with hyper feminine make-up, and slashed red lipstick over the top. He wore a costume that was more like armour than anything else, or skin; it seemed to be part of him. It made him look even more slender and elfish than he had at eighteen, on MDMA at Zacharias Smith’s country manor house party. 

The music changed, becoming fast and anxious. Draco dragged the tips of his knife fingers over the lipstick cuts on his face and and they began to drip—it was a clever, subtle piece of magic. 

He danced as if he were a creature from another planet. The crowd was spellbound, enthralled. Harry had the feeling that Draco could kill them all by simply continuing to dance until they starved to death.

Draco tore his off costume like a dragon scratching off its skin. By the time he was nearly naked, it seemed less that he had revealed his body than that he had peeled his body off, unearthing something vulnerable and private beneath; something more tender than muscles and skin. 

He carved the knives up the horrible scars on his chest, over his Dark Mark, over the scars on his neck, on his face. He cut off his headdress. His waist length silvery hair tumbled free, and he was the most strange, beautiful person Harry had ever seen, utterly baffling, impossible to understand or make sense of. A blinding spotlight fell on Draco as he cut away the final scraps of costume. He turned sharply backwards before anyone could see him fully naked. The stage went abruptly black, the music ended, and the crowd roared its approval. 

  
Most people had filtered away, but Draco still hadn’t come out. Harry spotted the woman who had done the swan routine talking to the barman.

“Excuse me,” he said. “Do you know where I could find Draco?”

The woman smiled widely.

“Are you a friend?”

“Yes,” said Harry, without hesitation.

“That’s wonderful! I’m Ursula. He never invites friends. He’ll be so pleased. He’s in the dressing room, I’ll show you.”

The dressing room was awash with boobs. Harry turned his eyes away from one formidable set of breasts only to be blinded by another.

“Draco!” said Ursula. “Your friend was floundering around outside waiting for you!”

“I don’t have friends,” said Draco’s unmistakably drawling voice. Harry had forgotten just how _posh_ it was. “I have acolytes.”

Then Draco was standing in front of him, and all Harry could do was smile as if he had been invited and say “hey”.

_“Harry?”_

Draco was still wearing make-up, including the lipstick scars, but now he wore a floor-length green dress, embroidered with dragons. His sleeves trailed to the floor. He half looked like a beautiful woman in her boudoir, half like an eccentric king in his dressing gown. The effect was confusing and sexual. 

“Good show,” said Harry.

“You _saw?”_

“I just wandered in. Small world.” 

“Come to Mars with us!” said Ursula.

“Sorry?”

“It’s a tolerant late-night restaurant,” said Draco. 

“Yeah, come,” said the fire dancer, and a few other distractingly naked people agreed. Draco was silent.

“Do you mind?” Harry asked Draco.

“Do what you want,” said Draco.

So Harry went to Mars with a crowd of burlesque dancers and Draco Malfoy dressed as a woman. 

Draco sat a few seats down from him. His huge false eyelashes fluttered demurely as he smiled at his food. He didn’t speak much. Neither did Harry.

“How do you know Draco?” asked Ursula.

“From school,” said Harry. 

“Aww, I can just imagine baby Draco!”

Harry didn’t know how to answer that, so he smiled awkwardly and ate a chip. 

“Has he ever mentioned how he got his…” he asked later, gesturing at his own face to demonstrate the scars.

Ursula grinned. 

“Hey, Draco!” she shouted across the din. “How did you get your scars?”

“Not now, darling, I’m not in the mood.”

A general rumble of discontent rose from the assembled burlesque dancers. 

“Come on,” said Ursula.

“Run out of ideas, have you?” asked Mark, the fire dancer.

Draco glared at Mark.

 _“Fine._ Are you all sitting comfortably?” 

Everyone laughed, but to Harry’s surprise, they fell silent. Draco leant forward on his elbows.

“The year was 1996,” he began, in a rich, dramatic, melodious voice. “New York. I was a cab driver.”

“One of those famous, 16-year-old New York cab drivers,” remarked a woman wearing an enormous headdress featuring a yellow submarine, a small-scale model of Guantanamo Bay, and a sign that said “America sucks”. Draco ignored her.

“A young man got into the back of my cab with a cat in a carrier. 

‘Sir, we’re not allowed to transport animals,’ I said, for even then, I was a professional.

‘You don’t understand,’ said the man. ‘I’m taking him to the vet to be put down.’ He looked so distraught that my famously soft heart melted. He got inside, _sealing my doom.”_

“Do you lie awake at night coming up with these?” asked a woman who was still only wearing nipple pasties, a thong, and a metric ton of body glitter. The rest of the table shushed her. Draco waited until silence had fallen before continuing. 

“Once the cab was moving, to my great dismay, the young man opened the cat carrier. The cat leapt forth with vim and vigour, instantly penetrating the drivers’ cabin. He had long, cruel claws, and he was deranged. His eyes— I swear his eyes glowed red. He was the Devil’s envoy.”

“Checks out,” said Ursula. “You’d probably sinned a bunch.”

“The cat clawed at my face—my beautiful face! And far from helping, the young man _spurred him on!_ ‘Have your fun now, cat!’ he said, ‘Go, cat, go!’ In vain did I writhe with the feline beast. He was too strong for me. My beauty was forever compromised. The world lost its second Helen of Troy.” Draco paused dramatically. “And _that_ is the story of how I got my scars.”

Everyone at the table clapped. 

“That was an okay one, mate,” said Mark, “but you’ve still never topped the magic wand fight in a bathroom story.”

“And I never will,” said Draco, returning with sudden fervour to his hamburger. “Now fuck off with your nosy questions, the lot of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea for this fic came to me when I saw this act by Scarlet Adams: 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crliyw2v8lI
> 
> It's gorgeous, you should all give it a watch!
> 
> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	5. Chapter 5

“I want to see you again,” Harry told Draco as they paid up. 

“I perform at the club once a month.”

“Get coffee with me,” said Harry. Draco gave him a measured look and nodded. 

“I’m free this weekend,” he said.

“Oh—I can’t, this weekend. I’m going to Wales to investigate a murder.”

“How the other half lives. I could do….Tuesday evening?”

“I have plans,” said Harry, automatically. Draco lifted one exaggerated painted eyebrow. “Sorry,” said Harry. “Work’s been busy. Er, could you do February 22nd at 7pm?”

“That’s in three weeks,” said Draco. 

“Yeah.”

Draco looked extremely unimpressed.

“Fine,” he said. “We’re going to my local coffee shop. Around the corner from here. I’m not going anywhere near…your part of town.”

“Great,” said Harry. Draco nodded solemnly and turned to leave. “Wait!”

Draco paused.

“One thing,” said Harry. “Bellatrix Lestrange…?”

Draco laughed. For a second he sounded happy.

“Don’t you think she’d be pleased?”

He shook his head, still laughing softly, and left. 

  
_Dear Draco,_

_I really, really liked your performance. You always were a bloody attention-seeker, so it makes total sense, really. It was amazing. I want to see it again._

_I made divisional head; remember I told you I had put myself forward for that? I don’t know if you read these. I guess I’ll find out. But I felt a bit miserable when I got the note telling me I’d got it. Weird. You don’t always have the reaction you think you’ll have to good things._

_I’m nervous about seeing you. I don’t see people often._

_Harry_

  
Draco didn’t answer, which confirmed Harry’s theory that it had been years since Draco had actually read one of his letters. He was clearly living life as a muggle. It would be difficult for him to receive owls all the time. 

Relieved from thinking about the recipient of his letters as a real person who might judge him, Harry wrote several more, about how uncomfortable he felt in his new role, although he was sure he would get used to it soon. He wrote about work, mainly, although occasionally he also wrote about how it felt as if something was missing, and he didn’t know what it was.

Three weeks passed slowly, despite how busy he was. 

  
Draco leant against the wall of the coffee shop. 

His long blond hair was half up in a little twisted bun. He had several cartilage piercings in one ear. He wore a studiously ratty oversized jumper, black slacks and brown oxfords that showed an expanse of white ankle. 

Without his make-up, he was lovelier than ever. The scars stood out starkly on his pale face. There were traces of left-over glitter on his cheekbones.

“Hey,” said Harry.

“I don’t want coffee,” said Draco. “Do you want coffee?”

“Er, no?”

“Let’s go for a walk.” He pushed away from the wall and took hold of Harry’s arm. “Mind if we apparate? I hate walking in London.”

“That’s fine,” said Harry, feeling a little dazed.

Draco apparated them to a field with a small spring running through it, let go of Harry, and started walking. Harry took a second to orient himself, then raced to catch up.

“Congratulations of your promotion,” said Draco. “That’s a huge achievement. You must be the youngest divisional head in centuries.”

“You read my letters?”

“Was I not supposed to?” asked Draco, casting him a sideways glance.

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, you never answered, so I thought…”

“I think of them as a sort of personal, bi-monthly, Harry Potter-themed newspaper,” said Draco. 

“You’re the only person I talk to,” blurted Harry.

Draco kept his eyes on the ground in front of him.

“You don’t know me, Harry.”

Harry didn’t know how to respond to that. They had scarcely talked since the era when they had fought on opposite sides of a war. But Draco had looked after him when he was vulnerable. Draco had fallen in love with someone Harry knew to be decent and kind. Draco had read hundreds of Harry’s letters and never once used them against him. 

Harry felt as if he knew Draco through the gaps, through the silences. 

“Shall I even the playing field?” asked Draco. “I feel as if I know you. Shall I tell you a story?”

They didn’t look at each other as they walked.

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Good idea.”

Draco didn’t speak immediately. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry saw him tuck his silky hair behind his delicate pierced ears. 

When he spoke, it was in the same, rather affected voice he had used to tell the cat story.

“London,” he said. “2002. A cold evening.” He glanced at Harry. “A good story teller sets the scene.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Our hero is twenty-two and on a pretty savage cocaine come-down, the sort where you’re sure people can smell it on you. He is carrying a bag he packed while he was still high, that consequently contains very little of use. It’s getting dark, and he doesn’t know where he will sleep. He can’t go home, because then he would have to tell his parents that he’s heartbroken over a boy—he couldn’t keep it from them. It was hard enough the last time. Anyway, if he goes home, he’ll get more coke, and although that feels like a brilliant idea just then, he wrote some words on his hands, words the last person who loved him told him. So whenever he catches sight of his own hands, he remembers that he’s a coward, and a paper-cut-out sort of person, and that stops him from going back. Only he doesn’t know how to go forward. Am I boring you?”

“No,” said Harry. Draco nodded and continued.

“But this is Britain, and accents matter. He waits until he hears someone walk by with the same one as him. It’s two posh boys, about his own age. They look as if they’ll probably be called things like Milo and Archie. Our hero approaches them.

‘Excuse me,’ he says. ‘I need help.’

With a different voice, they would have ignored him, but he speaks like them, so they don’t. Class is different among muggles, but privilege always recognises itself.

‘What’s happened to you, mate?’ asks the one who looks like a Milo.

‘I ran away from home,’ says our hero. ‘I’m gay,’ he adds, because that might prove a deal breaker. 

‘Oh, mate, that’s awful,’ says the one who looks like an Archie. ’Not the pouf thing. I mean. God. Have you got anywhere to stay? Where did you go to school?’

‘In Scotland,’ says our hero evasively. ‘I haven’t got anywhere to stay.’

‘Fettes? It must have been Fettes. I’m Hugo, and this is Benny.’

‘Draco,’ says our hero. Am I boring you, Harry?”

“So they just took you in?”

“They did.”

Draco looked bitter as hell.

“That was nice of them,” said Harry.

“They wouldn’t have taken _you_ in,” said Draco. “Money breeds money. I don’t know what to make of it.” Then, suddenly hissing, vitriolic: “You should have fucking left me to burn.”

Harry knocked his hand into Draco’s, not taking it, exactly, but allowing Draco to take his if he wanted. He didn’t. 

When Draco spoke again, he was calm.

“Hugo’s friend Clementine worked in an art gallery and gave our hero a job. It didn’t pay well enough for him to live anywhere, but Hugo let him live with him for free. They fell in love and lived happily ever after, the end.”

Harry was quiet. 

“Well,” said Draco, his voice hard and cold. “Aren’t you going to ask me for the rest?”

“No,” said Harry. “Thank you for telling me that much.”

Draco laughed.

“You spent a whole year stalking me when we were sixteen, but you’re just going to let this slide?”

“That was ten years ago,” said Harry. “And I’m still kind of stalking you.”

“How _did_ you find me?”

“It was accident. I didn’t come looking for you. I wouldn’t have done that. I remember how it felt when people used to try to pry me out of Grimmauld Place.”

“I’m not embarrassed about the burlesque dancing thing.”

“I don’t know why you would be. You’re great at it.”

Draco laughed and bumped his shoulder against Harry’s.

“You’re the first person to think Bellatrix Lestrange is a funny burlesque name. So far it’s been a personal joke, just for my pleasure.”

“I couldn’t believe my ears. Can you _imagine_ what she would do if she was alive?”

“Yes,” said Draco grimly. He absent-mindedly traced the scar on his cheek.

“You look good,” said Harry.

“Fuck off,” said Draco, emptily.

“This, er, this whole outfit thing works.”

Draco raised his eyebrows and looked at Harry.

“Aren’t you just darling,” he drawled.

“Fuck off,” said Harry, and Draco laughed. 

“So tell me about this Welsh murder,” he said.

It had been so long since anyone asked Harry about one of his cases. 

  
By the time Harry remembered he had only intended to stay out for an hour, it had been dark for ages.

“I have some suspect files to read,” he said. “I should go.”

“It sounds to me as if you’ve already got the suspect. That farmer was sketchy as fuck.”

“Yeah, I mean, it was probably him, but I’ve got to be sure.”

“So dutiful. Well, let me know how it goes.”

“Will you answer? If I write?”

“No.”

“Can we meet up again?”

“I’m not the one with the packed schedule, Harry.”

“I could do March 19th.”

Draco huffed a small laugh.

“Perfect,” he said.

Harry left with the uncomfortable feeling that he had disappointed Draco, somehow. 

He didn’t mention that he’d seen Draco to Ron and Hermione. He rarely told them important things, anymore.

Draco stood outside the coffee shop on March 19th. His fingernails were painted green.

“St Patrick’s Day gig,” he said, when he caught Harry looking. “Walk?”

“Sure,” said Harry, and Draco apparated them to a pebble beach. It was cold. 

“Why are you here, Harry?” he asked. 

“You apparated us. Is this Scotland?”

“Don’t do that.”

Harry sighed. They had started walking automatically. The nice thing about walking was that it made it easy not to look at Draco. Looking at Draco hurt, for a variety of reasons, not least of which was the end of Draco’s story, where he’d been in love with someone else.

“I’m—I think I’m lonely,” said Harry. “And for whatever reason, I’ve been spilling my soul out to you for years, and you’ve never turned on me, when you must know how much a single letter would sell for—”

“I have plenty of money,” interjected Draco. “I probably would have sold one, if I needed to.”

“Oh,” said Harry. The wind blew straight through his coat. He felt practically naked. 

There was a long silence. Harry didn’t know how to break it.

“My parents found me,” said Draco, as if he was answering a question. “About six months after I ran.” 

Harry glanced over and was surprised to see that Draco was smiling to himself.

“My father found me the same way you did. I saw him from the stage—he was sitting in the front row, wearing… I mean, you know how he dresses… people thought he was an eccentric elderly gay man, perving on the goods.”

“I literally cannot imagine Lucius Malfoy at a burlesque show.”

“Believe it. He comes quite often.”

“…what?”

Draco tugged on a strand of his hair.

“Turns out, I rather underestimated him. Mother and Father are fine with it. All of it; with me. They’re fine with me.”

“Your father… supports your burlesque career?”

“It’s not a career, Harry.”

“It could be. You’re brilliant.”

“That’s what Father says. Old habits die hard, I suppose. He wants me to build some kind of muggle drag empire.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“I overheard Ursula worrying to Mark, once, because she didn’t have a blog, and she felt bad about it. He told her she didn’t have to… I think the phrase was, _‘monetise her joy’._ ”

“How… how _are_ you, Draco?”

Draco pulled his hands into the sleeves of his jumper.

“Does Michael ever ask about me?” he asked, his voice thin.

Harry’s heart sank.

“I don’t see him,” he said, and then, because he was selfish, and because the fact had reassured some secret part of him when he heard it, he said: “He married Susan Bones.”

Draco laughed too loudly.

“That’s great,” he said. “She’s lovely. He must be—he must be really happy.”

“You’re not over him,” said Harry. 

Maybe Harry would have written the letters to anyone. How could self-revelation make you like someone before you knew them? Wasn’t Harry just in love with the idea of being listened to in the right way? Maybe Draco was nothing but a blank space for Harry to drape himself around.

Except, Harry _did_ know Draco. Draco had cried on a broomstick when he was eighteen, while talking about a dead house elf. 

“Are you freezing?” asked Draco. “I’m freezing. Let’s go somewhere else.”

He didn’t wait for Harry to answer. He took Harry’s arm and apparated them to the top of a hill outside Edinburgh.

“This is shit,” he said, the moment they’d arrived, and he apparated them to a purple moor of heather. “I hate this,” he said, and took them to a deep blue lake. “I hate it,” he said—he wasn’t crying, but his face was scrunched up as if he was—he apparated them to a meadow full of daffodils. “I hate it, this is terrible—”

“Draco, stop!”

Draco let go of him and walked a few metres away. 

Harry approached him slowly. He didn’t say anything. He just put one arm around Draco’s shoulders and rested their heads together. 

“Married,” said Draco.

“About six months ago.”

“Fuck,” said Draco, his voice cracking.

“I’m sorry.”

“’s’fine,” said Draco. He took a shuddery breath. “He deserves someone good.”

“You’re good.”

“You’re so full of shit, Harry.” Draco wiped vaguely at his face, although he hadn’t actually shed any tears. “I’m fine, honestly. It was a fucked up relationship, anyway. I don’t even remember most of it. And it’s no fun, loving someone who’s ashamed of you.”

“He wasn’t ashamed of you.”

“Of course he was.”

“I think your memories of that time might not be all that reliable. Do you still…?”

“No. I’ve been more or less sober for over three years.”

“Congratulations.”

“Oh, God, _don’t_.” He broke away from Harry and sat down heavily among the daffodils. “You’re fucked up too, you know.”

“I know,” said Harry, sitting beside him.

“Don’t you dare try to make me talk about it.”

“I wouldn’t.”

Draco picked at the grass.

“I work at an art gallery,” he said. “You asked me once, what I did for a living. I didn’t have a job back then; just a death wish.”

“Do you still have a death wish?”

Draco’s jaw twitched, but he didn’t answer. Harry stretched out his pinkie finger so that it touched Draco’s. He counted it a win when Draco didn’t move his hand away. 

“So,” said Draco. “When will I see you next? July? Or is that too soon? Have you room in your calendar for me before Christmas, do you think?”

Harry took a deep breath.

“How’s Tuesday evening?”

Draco looked up.

“Really?”

Harry nodded.

“I can do Tuesday,” said Draco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	6. Chapter 6

“What do you mean you can’t do Tuesday?” asked Ron. 

“Something came up,” said Harry. 

“We see you twice a month, and now you can’t even manage that?”

Harry hated firecalling. His knees hurt.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he said. Ron scoffed.

“Sure. Great. Whatever. See you when you next have time, Harry.”

He shut off his floo, locking Harry out. 

  
“Let me choose the place,” said Harry to Draco, that Tuesday, and Draco let him. He apparated them both to a wood he had camped in during the war. He had been too frightened back then to appreciate it. 

“Where are we?” asked Draco.

“I don’t know,” admitted Harry. “I camped here during the war.”

Draco’s face went taut.

“Ah.”

“I’m not going to…to ask you about it…but do you mind if…? Forget it.”

Draco’s eyes were curious.

“Do I mind if…?” he said. 

“If I talk about it? Sometimes? Like, if it comes up?”

Draco shook his head.

“No, I don’t mind.”

“Cool,” said Harry. “Yeah. Er, good. So. How’s work?”

Draco nodded slowly, his eyes still fixed on Harry’s.

“Good,” he said. “Do you want me to ask you about it, Harry?”

“No. Maybe. No.”

Draco wandered a few trailing steps away.

“I bet you’re good at camping,” he said, and Harry knew exactly what he was doing. He wasn’t quite asking. He was maybe asking. 

He was perfect. 

“Ron was the worst,” said Harry. “Because he was used to three square meals a day.”

“What were you, on a diet?”

“No, just. You know. Mistreated as a child.”

Draco looked at him.

“Do you want me to ask about that?”

Harry shook his head.

“ _No_ ,” he said forcefully. 

“How did Granger fare?” asked Draco, as if he hadn’t just learn something appalling and shameful. “The humidity must have ravaged her curls.”

“She missed Ron.”

“He left?”

Harry nodded.

“Yeah, it was fucked up.”

He explained about the horcrux, how bad-tempered they had been, how hopeless. They walked aimlessly as he talked, so he didn’t have to look at Draco. 

“But he came back,” said Harry. “So. That was what mattered.”

“Redeemed himself, did he,” said Draco.

“Completely.”

“Completely? I don’t think that’s possible,” said Draco, and they weren’t talking about Ron anymore.

“I forgave him,” said Harry, carefully. “I understand why he did it, and I know he changed.”

“Suppose he had died while he was gone,” said Draco. He stared off to the side as he walked. “He wouldn’t have had a chance to—what I mean is, redemption is a privilege. It isn’t fair. Who’s to say my Aunt Bella wouldn’t have turned out to be perfectly lovely in twenty years, if the circumstances changed? Or—or Crabbe, for instance—”

He cut himself off. 

“I don’t know,” said Harry slowly. “It’s complicated. But I love Ron, so I forgave him completely. Things don’t always have to be… _fair_ to be _right_.”

His hands itched to touch the scars on Draco’s face, but he kept them still. 

“My art gallery only sells oil paintings,” said Draco conversationally. “Oil, not acrylic. There’s a difference. But it’s actually not about the art. It’s a wife factory. Every three months one of my co-workers gets siphoned off by a billionaire art dealer.”

“God. Sounds terrible.”

“Not at all. I go to a lot of glamorous weddings.”

“Don’t the billionaire art dealers ever tempt you?”

“I dated one for a while.”

“I thought—aren’t you with Hugo, still?”

“Hugo? No.” Draco shook his head, like a horse shaking off flies.

“Was he so bad?”

“ _He_ wasn’t the problem.”

“Who was?”

“I only ever went camping for the Quidditch World Cups. But to be honest, our tent was so luxurious that I doubt we really got the whole camping _experience_.”

So Harry let it go.

  
“Will you write back, if I write?” asked Harry, when they prepared to apparate back to London. Harry wasn’t free for another three weeks. 

“No,” said Draco. 

Harry nodded, trying not to seem all weird and obsessive and disappointed.

“I’d text you, if you had a phone,” said Draco. “Here.”

He gave Harry a slip of paper with a phone number on it. 

Later, it occurred to Harry that he must have written his number on it earlier; must have put the slip of paper in his pocket in the hope that a moment would come when he could give it away.

“Harry…?” said Ron incredulously, when Harry showed up at Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes the next day on his lunch hour. He didn’t usually take lunch; he just ate a sandwich at his desk.

“Hey,” said Harry, hoping that if he spoke casually, Ron wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. “Do you sell those mobile phone things? The ones that work with magic?”

“Er, yeah? But I don’t have one, and neither does Hermione,” said Ron.

“That’s fine,” said Harry.

“Who are you planning on calling?”

Harry shrugged.

Ron tried to hide his smile as he went to the stock room and got Harry a phone. 

“Here you go, mate, on the house, as usual.” 

“I’ve got the gold—”

“George would _kill_ me if he found out you’d paid for anything.” He gave Harry the phone, showed him how to use it. “She’s a lucky girl, Harry,” he said. 

Harry smiled awkwardly and fled. 

  
**HP: Draco Malfoy?**

_DM: Harry Potter?_

**HP: how did you know it was me?**

_DM: magic_

**HP: you’re a twat**

_DM: I’m delighted we’ve found a new medium through which you can insult me_

**HP: so it takes you 300 letters before you’ll write back to me**

**HP: but if I text you reply straight away?**

  
Draco’s response came two days later.

  
_DM: would you prefer I play hard to get?_

**HP: you’ve made your point**

**HP: how are you**

_DM: Bored at work. In fact, aren’t you at work?_

**HP: yeah**

**HP: I just**

**HP: yeah no I should go**

_DM: you should_

_DM: think of all the Welshmen who might die through your negligence_

**HP: ok not all the people murdered in Britain are Welsh**

_DM: art dealer just walked in ttyl_

**HP: Draco wait**

**HP: wait**

**HP: what’s ttyl**

**HP: is it code**

**HP: is it something he’s wearing**

**HP: the art dealer I mean**

**HP: Draco**

  
_DM: ttyl = talk to you later_

_DM: it wasn’t some weird sex thing, calm down_

**HP: I didn’t think it was a weird sex thing!**

_DM: good because it definitely wasn’t_

**HP: NOW I think it was a weird sex thing**

_DM: ;P_

**HP: what does that mean**

_DM: oh sweet Harry_

_DM: there is so much you do not know_

  
It was easier to text than to meet up. It took up less time, and so it made Harry less anxious, and actually it was effortless, really, to send Draco a quick text in the morning asking how he’d slept, and then at work he often had five minutes here and there, where he could laugh at the ridiculous photos Draco sent him.

There was a picture of big wheelie bin, for instance.

_DM: my next act_

_DM: wheel me on stage_

_DM: slowly disgorge all the trash within_

_DM: audience awaits with baited breath_

_DM: when will the nudity begin, they wonder_

_DM: wheelie bin tips over, empty_

_DM: Draco Malfoy is a trash person_

**HP: that’s funny except you’re not a trash person**

_DM: the assembled bits of trash on the floor rise up as one_

_DM: they form a trash monolith_

_DM: slowly, with its sexy trash face, Trash Draco takes off one glove_

_DM: the crowd goes wild_

**HP: you know I’m trying to stop a gang of magical jewel thieves from cursing the crown jewels right**

**HP: you know that**

**HP: I’ve told you before**

**HP: my job is like, really important**

_DM: steaming Hot Garbage Draco bursts into flames_

_DM: no one’s ever seen anything like it_

**HP: this act would probably be great tbh**

_DM: look at you_

_DM: using abbreviations_

_DM: I’m proud of you_

It was past midnight.

**HP: you up?**

_DM: yes_

_DM: how may I be of service?_

**HP: can I call you?**

Draco didn’t answer for ten minutes. Harry stared at his phone the whole time.

_DM: sure_

“I don’t get nightmares anymore,” said Harry, the instant Draco picked up.

“Oh good, I was worried you’d beat around the bush.”

“But sometimes I just lie in bed thinking of every stupid, awful thing I’ve ever done, and I just— they all come back to me in, like, this endless rush of, of, of things I hate that I did, and I have work tomorrow, and I just want to be able to fucking shut it _off_ , you know?”

“What sort of thing?” asked Draco. It was intimate to have his voice in Harry’s ear.

“Just, you know. Shit stuff.”

There was a delicate pause.

“You can… tell me, if you want…” said Draco, and Harry suddenly knew what was making Draco so nervous.

“It’s not… the big things,” he said gently. “I feel remorse for… _that_ …for the big things, all the time, but that’s not what this is.”

“Oh,” said Draco, sounding relieved.

“It’s stuff like… one time, this little girl asked for my autograph, and I was in such a bad mood, and I had blisters, but still, fuck, I was so rude—”

“What did you say?”

“I told her to get out of the way and barged past her. She cried, I think. I didn’t stop.”

Draco laughed.

“You monster. All right, my turn.”

“What?”

“When I first met Ursula, I very insistently tried to find out where her parents’ _second_ home was. She kept saying, ‘No, they just live in a flat in Peckham,’ and I kept saying, ‘Yes, but where do they _summer?’”_

Harry laughed. 

“You didn’t.”

“I did.” Draco’s voice went a little flat. “She’s never really liked me since then. Fair enough.”

“I think she likes you.”

“All right, what’s next? Did you spit on a war veteran? Brawl with a pregnant woman in the streets?”

Harry told Draco every one of his cringing memories, and Draco laughed at each one in turn. They vanished, boggart-like, at the sound of his laughter. 

“I feel better,” said Harry, an hour later.

“That’ll be a hundred pounds, thank you very much,” said Draco.

“Thank you, Draco.”

“Go to sleep, Harry. You’ve got important work to do.”

“I know. You’re right. Thank you.”

He could almost hear Draco rolling his eyes.

“Good _night_ ,” said Draco, and hung up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	7. Chapter 7

It was so easy, just to call Draco when he got home, and put him on speaker phone, and amble around his kitchen getting dinner, chatting about absolutely nothing.

“What are you making?” asked Draco over the phone. 

“Just some roast veg.”

“God, I’m hungry. I don’t think I’ve eaten a vegetable since 2002.”

“Come over,” said Harry, before he could stop to think about it.

There was a long pause.

“Or don’t,” said Harry. “Whatever, it’s not a big deal.”

“Have you got enough for two?” asked Draco, hesitantly. 

“I’ve got enough for about twelve, mate. Come over.”

“I’ll have to apparate; I haven’t got a floo.”

“That’s fine.”

Harry told him the address. Five minutes later his front doorbell rang, and God, it was Draco, looking gorgeous and shy on his doorstep.

“Are you sure,” he said. Harry ignored him and went back to the kitchen, so that Draco was forced to follow. “Smells good,” said Draco wistfully.

“I’m not trying to be funny, but don’t you have like a million house elves?”

“I do, yeah,” said Draco, taking in Harry’s kitchen. “At least, my parents do. I couldn’t have one when I had muggle flatmates, though, and by the time I got my own place I was sort of…used to… Good Christ, is that troll-leg umbrella stand?”

“You like it?”

“It’s quite something, Harry.”

“You can have it, if you want.”

Draco made a horrible face. 

“You’re too kind,” he said.

“No, really, I insist,” said Harry, smirking.

“I couldn’t possibly.”

“I won’t take no for an answer.”

“I’ll bloody hit you with it over the head if you offer it to me again,” said Draco. Harry grinned.

“Are you going to help me, or are you just going to lounge around looking pretty?”

Draco’s eyes flashed up at him. He frowned.

“Sorry,” said Harry, faltering.

“Give me something to chop, and I’ll chop it,” said Draco.

Of course, Draco wasn’t very useful when it came to kitchen chores. He kept getting distracted.

“Onion burlesque,” he mused. “The stage is a chopping board. I roll hideously forward. Slowly, I peel off my layers. Tear gas comes out of hidden canisters among the audience! By the time I’ve been fully unwrapped, they are weeping uncontrollably! The police cart my nubile, onion-y body off the stage!”

“Give that here. _I’ll_ chop it.”

“I was doing it!”

“You were choreographing.”

“Don’t _you_ have a house elf?”

“I like cooking,” said Harry. “Feels homey.”

Draco looked sideways at him.

“I suppose,” he said, and started making the long slices of red pepper do the can-can.

“Stop… slutting up my vegetables!”

“I will not have you using sexist terminology in my kitchen, Harry!”

Harry made a sound that was half exasperation, half delight. 

“You’re useless. Go open a bottle of wine and _sit_ ,” he said. Then he froze. “Oh, fuck. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” said Draco lightly. “I like water.”

“I have… milk?”

“Water is good.”

“I’m really sorry, I just forgot.”

“It’s fine, Harry. People drink around me all the time.”

“Doesn’t it bother you?”

“No. Sometimes. The smell. It’s fine.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Is this meal solely vegetables, or is there to be some sort of carbohydrate?”

  
The next time Draco came over, Harry had stocked his pantry full of a variety of non-alcoholic drinks.

“Ribena? Sparkling apple juice? Coke? Diet Coke? Sprite? Lemonade? Iced tea? Orange squash? Waitrose Finest Apple and Mango juice?” he offered a bemused Draco.

“You went to Waitrose for me? I’m touched,” said Draco. He said it as if it was a joke, but he kept glancing over at the pantry, and he brought it up several times throughout the evening, _You didn’t have to, usually people forget, I’m so used it, you really didn’t have to, that was quite thoughtful of you, Potter…_

  
“I want to see you perform again. When’s your next gig?” asked Harry on the phone. He hadn’t got home until eleven thirty, so there was only time for a quick call before bed. 

It hadn’t even occurred to him not to reach out to Draco.

“You won’t be able to make it,” said Draco. “It’s at eight on Saturday; you’ll be on patrol.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “Yeah.”

“I have later gigs occasionally, I’ll let you know next time.” Harry heard Draco stretching over the phone, and wished he could see it. “Although they’re always boozy disasters, I’ll be honest with you. I have a special act I do with a late night crowd.”

“What is it?”

“I play a drunk girl trying to buy a kebab.”

“I bet they love that.”

“What can I say, I’m the best.”

 _I love you_ , thought Harry, with sudden clarity. 

It wasn’t anything he hadn’t known before. 

  
His auror partner was a woman named Bianca Rosenthal. She stared at Harry when he asked her about patrol shifts.

“You want… someone else to do your shift?”

“Just on Saturday!” Harry paused. “Although I could maybe cut back on evening patrols in general, actually.”

“Harry. Wow. Um, yes. Totally. Let me just. Oh, Harry!” 

To Harry’s great surprise, she threw herself into his arms and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Er, Bianca?”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just glad!”

“That I’m dropping a shift…?”

“Yes! Harry, you do know most people stop doing patrols after their second year on the job?”

“I know that; but I’m more thorough, so—”

“No, you can’t take it back. I’m putting the request through now. You’ll be out of here by seven every day, don’t argue with me.”

  
When Harry arrived at the nightclub, there was the same atmosphere of joyous anticipation as before. He hadn’t told Draco he was coming.

Ursula found him the moment he walked in. She wore her stage make up and a spangly dress.

“Harry! You’re so sweet to come, Draco will be thrilled. How are you?”

But Harry was choking.

“Is that…”

He pointed at where Lucius Malfoy stood, impossibly straight in more ways than one, wearing a stern muggle suit.

“Oh, yeah, that’s Draco’s dad, Lucie. He’s such a sweetheart, have you met him?”

“Once or twice,” said Harry.

“Lucie!”

Lucius looked up, smiled openly at Ursula, and then caught sight of Harry. His smile instantly became false and strained.

Ursula took Harry’s arm and dragged him over to Lucius.

“You two know each other?” she said. 

“Not well,” said Lucius, through his forced smile.

“Lucius,” said Harry. The anger he had expected to come did not arrive. This was the man who had nearly killed Ginny Weasley when she was only eleven years old. But Harry thought of Draco, musing about Bellatrix Lestrange’s potential redemption arc, and felt no anger at all. 

“Draco’s doing his Queen of Tears act tonight, it’s sooo pretty,” said Ursula. 

“I saw it in Brighton,” said Lucius. Harry laughed. He couldn’t help himself. 

“Think it’s funny, do you, Potter?” snarled Lucius. “Here to jeer at my son?”

Harry forced himself to stop laughing. 

“No,” he said. “Draco and I are friends.” 

“Friends?” repeated Lucius.

“Oh, yeah,” said Ursula blithely. “Draco talks about Harry alllll the time.”

“Does he?” asked Harry.

“Ah, shit,” said Ursula. “Don’t tell him I told you that.”

“What does he say?”

“How long has this been going on?” asked Lucius.

“Years,” said Harry, although he wasn’t sure Draco would see it that way.

“Years,” said Lucius. 

“How’s Cissy?” asked Ursula. “I wish she’d come again.”

“I’m sure I’ll be able to persuade her eventually,” said Lucius. “She’s rather old-fashioned, as you know.”

Harry laughed and laughed and laughed. Not even Lucius’ furious glare could stop him.

“What do you think of Draco’s stage name?” asked Harry, eventually. Lucius’ mouth drew into a long, thin line.

“Draco’s always had an irreverent sense of humour. Narcissa was not amused.”

“Oh,” said Harry, not laughing anymore. The lights went dark, and the show began.

  
Draco’s act was different, less ethereal, but equally lovely. He wore a crown made of tear drop crystals and a ballgown made of a special paper that disintegrated when water touched it. At first, Draco cried — although Harry could tell that he had used a charm to draw the tears out, because he had seen Draco cry before, and it was a much more heaving affair. Then, he thrust his hands into a bucket of water and ran them all over himself as he danced, until the dress and everything beneath it had been eroded away, leaving him only in some sort of diamante underwear. The lights dimmed, and Lucius clapped louder than anyone. 

  
“Harry!” said Draco, in the dressing room. Then, more muted, “Father.”

“You’ve changed the lighting cues since I last saw it,” said Lucius.

“Yeah—”

“ _Yes_ , Draco. We aren’t _American_.”

Draco was instantly cowed.

“ _Yes_. Sorry. I wanted to make it feel as if the stage is underwater by the end, do you think—did you prefer it before?”

“It’s good enough yet,” said Lucius. “I’ll speak to the lighting technician.”

“Oh, please don’t! You terrified him last time,” said Draco. He glanced at Harry. “I didn’t know you were coming, Harry, I would have—”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t need to. He would have told Lucius not to come.

“Lucie!” said Mark, wearing nothing but a silk thong. He drew Lucius into a bear hug. “Come to Mars with us!”

“Not tonight, thank you,” said Lucius. “I’d better be on my way. We’ll talk more about the lighting, Draco.”

Draco nodded seriously. 

“Bye Lucie! We love you!” shouted one of the naked women at the back of the dressing room. Lucius gave her an uncomfortable smile and left.

“Well, that was surreal,” said Harry. 

“Did _you_ think the lighting was shit?” asked Draco. 

“I thought it was perfect.”

Draco didn’t seem to hear him. He shook his head.

“He’s right; it doesn’t work, the whole act is stupid, I don’t know why I still do it.”

“Draco. Chill out. He’s just your dad. That’s how he is.”

“You don’t know him,” said Draco, suddenly ferocious, and then he sighed, patting the base of his false eyelashes with one delicate finger. He was wearing what Harry recognised as a very nice set of sky blue dress robes. 

“He seems all right, now,” said Harry. “Not saying I’m over all… all the stuff from before. I mean. I haven’t _forgiven_ him. But he seems to care about you.”

Draco was packing away his crown into a bag. He shook his head.

“I’m such a _dunce_ when it comes to lighting,” he said. 

“Draco. It was brilliant. I loved it. The way the costume slowly disintegrated the more you cried? Amazing. Although I feel those people deserve to know that in reality, you’re not a pretty cry-er.”

Draco laughed a little at that, although his expression darkened.

“I’m not a pretty _anything_ ,” he said.

“You’re gorgeous,” said Harry quietly.

“Don’t patronise me, Harry.”

“I’m not—”

Draco spoke to the room at large.

“Look, are we going to Mars, or not? Because at this rate, the Russians will get there first.”

  
“So, Draco, how did you get your scars?” asked Mark, sucking on a milkshake. Draco smiled a wide, crocodile smile, but under the table his knee knocked reassuringly against Harry’s. 

“Strap in, folks,” said Draco, “Let me spin you a tale.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	8. Chapter 8

Harry went to Draco’s next gig, and his next. He soon saw what he was quite sure Draco did not: that Draco had friends, lots them, and that they loved him. 

He decided to test this theory one night at Mars. 

“Isn’t there a bar at the nightclub?” he asked Ursula, as he handed the waiter his menu. 

“There is,” said Ursula.

“So why do you always come here?”

“Aw, you know, this is a bit more friendly for people who don’t drink.”

Harry looked around. Everyone at the table had wine or beer, except for Draco, who nursed a lime and soda.

“Most of you drink,” said Harry. “All of you, except for Draco.”

Ursula gave him a look that suggested she knew exactly what he was doing.

“Draco doesn’t like bars,” she said. “He never used to stay, when we went to the bar. So now we come here instead, and he stays.”

Harry smiled at his cutlery.

“You’re good friends,” he said. 

“He’s a lamb,” said Ursula fondly. Draco glanced at her from across the table as she spoke, and she raised her voice. “We’re talking about you, Draco!”

Draco glared at them, flicked his hair bitchily over his shoulder, and turned to talk to Rain, the M.C.

“So,” asked Ursula. “Are you two dating, or…?”

“No,” said Harry. He fiddled with his paper napkin in his lap. “He’s not over his ex.”

“Hugo?” asked Ursula, sounding surprised.

“No, Michael.”

“Aw, yeah, that was Hugo’s problem, too,” said Ursula. “Posh git. You know he once asked me why I still kept my Nan around? _‘We bought ours a cottage somewhere. She sends us cards.’_ Turns out he meant his _nanny_ , not his grandma.”

Harry, who could probably have listened to Ursula badmouth Draco’s exes all day, made a sympathetic sound. 

The waiter put a plate of chips in front of Ursula. She fell on them eagerly. 

“So he was with Hugo for a while, then?” asked Harry, sensing that Ursula was more invested in the chips than in the conversation.

“About a year, I think,” said Ursula. “Don’t get me wrong, Hugo was lovely. I don’t know that Draco would have kicked the drugs without him.”

“Oh,” said Harry gloomily. _He_ hadn’t got Draco off drugs. Was Harry even lovely? Probably not. And Michael had been posh, too. Clearly, Draco had a type.

“Anyway, don’t give up,” said Ursula. “He’ll figure it out, eventually.”

“Figure what out?”

Ursula laughed and picked up a long chip. 

“Chip challenge!” she exclaimed to the table .”Anyone got one longer than this?”

“I have, under the table,” said Mark lecherously, and everyone threw food at him, and Harry never found out what it was that Draco would figure out, eventually. 

  
**HP: you’re wrong about Ursula**

**HP: she does like you**

_DM: is that what you two were talking so cosily about tonight?_

_DM: you looked as if you were plotting a state coup_

**HP: they all care about you a lot**

**HP: they think of you as a good friend**

_DM: I don’t really have friends_

**HP: you do**

_DM: I suppose it depends what you mean by friendship_

**HP: people who love you**

_DM: flawed definition_

_DM: my aunt Bella loved me_

_DM: my aunt Bella ≠ my friend_

**HP: ok well**

**HP: I don’t know then**

**HP: but I know they care about you**

_DM: they’re essentially co-workers, Harry_

_DM: they don’t know me_

**HP: so no one can be your friend unless they know you**

**HP: but no one can know you because you won’t let them?**

Draco didn’t answer for ten minutes. When he did, it was with a picture of a kitten cuddling several birds.

_DM: HARRY HAVE YOU SEEN THIS_

_DM: THE INTERNET IS WILD_

_DM: CATS ARE THE NATURAL PREDATORS OF BIRDS_

**HP: lol**

**HP: you’re ridiculous**

_DM: new act idea_

_DM: I’m a sexy bird_

_DM: no wait_

_DM: sexy kitten, covered in birds_

**HP: I can already tell that this is a bad idea**

_DM: no hear me out_

_DM: I come on stage wearing a coat made of live birds_

_DM: I lure them off my body using crumbs of bread_

**HP: Draco**

_DM: slowly revealing that my body_

**HP: do not say “is covered in fur”**

_DM: … IS COVERED IN FUR_

**HP: you realise that if they haven’t seen**

**HP: like**

**HP: this EXACT picture**

_DM: everyone’s seen this picture_

**HP: you’re deranged**

_DM: you love it_

**HP: sure**

_DM: oh come on_

_DM: you do_

**HP: it’s late**

_DM: fiiine_

_DM: goodnight_

**HP: night**

  
It was increasingly difficult not to text “I love you”.

  
The first time Draco asked about Dean Thomas was also the first time Harry saw Draco’s flat. It was the kind of studio loft that wouldn’t have impressed someone if they didn’t know about London house prices; smallish with enormous high ceilings and windows. The main room of the flat was given over to Draco’s costume workshop. Harry resisted making a comment about the Dementor outfits Draco had made in third year, which in retrospect seemed like the inauspicious beginnings of a promising talent for sewing. The loft was accessible by ladder, and Harry could just about make out a low Japanese bed. There were a lot of plants. 

“I don’t know about Dean Thomas,” Harry answered. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

Draco was fiddling about with tea bags.

“Is he alive, do you think?” he asked, casually. 

“Jesus, Draco.”

“Well?”

“I’d have heard if he wasn’t,” said Harry. 

Draco did not seem reassured.

“I’m _sure_ I would have heard,” said Harry. 

“Milk?” asked Draco, although he knew Harry’s tea preferences. 

“Thanks,” said Harry. 

“Some of the shit he and I used to do,” said Draco. He put away the milk and started wiping down his oven, which was how Harry knew he wanted to talk. Draco found it easiest to talk when he had something to do with his hands; something to look at. “I think back, and… do you know how many times I just bought random pills from strangers and took them without checking what they were?”

Harry didn’t say anything.

“Which was was, like, _particularly_ reckless,” said Draco, scrubbing at his spotless oven, “given how many people want me dead, you know? And Dean was just as bad. He used to go home with the thuggiest fucking men. I’m astonished he wasn’t murdered.”

Harry took his tea from the counter and warmed his hands on it. 

“I mean,” said Draco, “he was so fucked up after the war. It was ironic, really, that he was trying to work through it all with _me_ , of all people… when I’m the _reason_ …”

“He forgave you,” said Harry.

Draco laughed.

“Oh, yes. We got high together every night for four years, and every single time he told me he forgave me. Over and over.” He laughed again. “He didn’t fucking forgive me. He _couldn’t_. He was just trying to convince himself.”

Draco leant his hips against the hob, his head against the extractor fan. Harry approached slowly, slowly. Put down his tea. Put one hand on Draco’s shoulder blade. 

“There’s this thing called Myspace,” said Draco abruptly.

Harry dropped his hand and hoisted himself to sit on the counter.

“What is it?” he asked, because he had a policy never to resist Draco’s conversation changes. 

“Oh, it’s a brilliant internet thing. I don’t quite understand it myself, but I have to show you.”

“Okay.”

So Draco brought over his laptop and showed Harry his Myspace profile and they didn’t talk about Dean again. 

  
“Dean?” asked Ron. “You’ve come to the shop on your lunch hour to ask about Dean?”

Harry sidled by the cash register. 

“Yeah,” he said.

“I mean,” said Ron, looking nonplussed, “he’s living with Luna. She’s been helping him get his act together. I’d say you should see them, but I know how you hate it when…”

“Yeah, I think I will. Thanks.” Harry paused. “Er, how’ve you been?”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” said Ron, carefully. 

Ron didn’t tell him important things anymore, either.

“Everything going well with Hermione?”

“Yeah,” said Ron. 

“Cool, good.”

“Harry… are you seeing someone?”

Harry pulled a Draco and started talking about how amazing the internet was. 

“So these… memes… all the muggles read them?” asked Ron, clearly utterly baffled by the direction the conversation had taken. 

“Yeah, totally, they can’t get enough of them. Anyway, I’d better get back to work, see you around, take care!”

  
Dean and Luna lived in a farmhouse near Winchester. It was a sunny spring day when Harry visited, and they had tea in the garden. Luna looked exactly the same as she had at fourteen, and Dean looked about forty-five. 

“It’s very nice to see you, Harry,” said Luna. 

“Yeah, it’s good to see you, too,” said Harry, nervously watching Dean out of the corner of his eye. Dean’s feet tapped constantly, and he drummed his fingers on his legs, and his teeth were like old tombstones, all crooked and rotten. 

“How’ve you been?” asked Luna.

Harry thought about saying that he’d been good, thanks, but it was written pretty clearly on Dean’s face how _he’d_ been doing. Anything other than the truth seemed like needless cruelty.

“I’ve been really depressed for a long time,” said Harry. “Since the war, really. Think I’m coming out of it, though.”

“Wingflorps mature in our brain at around this age,” said Luna, nodding sagely. Dean made a snide laughing sound. Luna passed him a biscuit. He did not eat it. 

“How long have you two been living together?”

“Four months,” said Luna. 

“Just like old times,” said Dean sarcastically. 

“I think it’s quite different,” said Luna serenely. “We’re not chained up in a cellar, for one.”

Dean made the snide laughing sound again.

“Er,” said Harry, “speaking of which, Draco Malfoy was asking after you.”

Dean jolted, spilling his cup of tea.

“He’s _alive?”_

“Er, yeah,” said Harry.

“I thought for sure—he was so fucking reckless—I used to look at the obituaries—”

“He’s doing pretty well,” said Harry.

“I want to see him,” said Dean, leaning earnestly forward. 

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” said Luna.

“He’s been sober for over three years,” said Harry, guessing her concern. “Doesn’t even smoke cigarettes.”

“I have to see him,” said Dean. “I have to tell him I’m…”

Dean trailed off, seeming to notice for the first time that he had spilled tea all over himself.

“I’ll, er, I’ll check if he’s free,” said Harry, suddenly unsure whether it was a good idea for Draco to see Dean. Maybe they’d drag each other down again. Maybe Draco would feel betrayed that Harry had mentioned him. 

“He’s okay?” asked Dean.

“You once told me you didn’t know him all that well,” Harry reminded him.

“I would never have said that.”

“You did!”

“Well I don’t fucking remember that, do I!”

“Dean,” said Luna, “Harry’s our friend.”

“I know!” Dean leant back on the garden bench, breathing heavily. “I know.” He looked at Harry. “Three years sober?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s…” Dean laughed. “If _Draco_ can do it…!”

“Draco can do anything he sets his mind to,” said Harry coldly. Dean looked puzzled. 

“I meant, because he was deeper in it than anyone else I knew,” he said. “Why are you two hanging out, anyway? Are you friends?”

“Whose house is this?” asked Harry. “Luna, did you buy it?”

“That’s what Draco used to do,” said Dean. “On a comedown. Deflect. He could never talk, once he was sober.”

“I bought the farm with the money I made from my literotica, Harry,” said Luna. “It’s very popular with the over-fifties.”

“Oh,” said Harry, wishing he hadn’t said anything.

“Before you ask, Luna and I aren’t dating, or married, or secretly pining for each other,” said Dean.

“I didn’t get that vibe, no,” said Harry.

“I think friendship is so much nicer than romance, don’t you?” asked Luna.

Harry couldn’t quite bring himself to agree. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	9. Chapter 9

**HP: so**

**HP: I**

**HP: [typing]**

_DM: having an aneurysm over there Harry_

_DM: trying to confess undying love or something_

**HP: I saw Dean**

**HP: Draco**

_DM: yeah I’m here_

_DM: how was he_

**HP: your teeth are in better shape than his**

_DM: but then, he isn’t hideously deformed_

**HP: [typing]**

_DM: don’t bother, Harry_

_DM: how was he_

_DM: was he_

**HP: sober, yeah**

**HP: recently, by the looks of it**

_DM: he was sober?_

_DM: you’re sure_

_DM: addicts can be tricky like that_

**HP: pretty sure**

**HP: he seemed fucking miserable**

_DM: ah, a sure tell_

**HP: and he’s living with Luna**

_DM: Christ_

**HP: no it’s good she’s taking care of him**

_DM: no no I_

_DM: that is good_

_DM: I’m glad_

_DM: It’s just_

_DM: the pair of them_

_DM: together again_

_DM: like old times_

_DM: lol, and all that_

**HP: he wants to see you**

_DM: you mentioned me?_

**HP: well yeah**

_DM: he wants to see me?_

**HP: said he wants to tell you something**

_DM: Yes, I’m sure he does._

**HP: you’re assuming the worst**

_DM: oh yes?_

_DM: what do you assume I am assuming, O assuming one?_

**HP: that he wants to take back all those I Forgive Yous**

**HP: but that’s not what it seemed like**

**HP: I think he missed you**

  
**HP: Draco**

_DM: did you know that the heart of a shrimp is located in its head_

**HP: no**

**HP: where does it keep its brain**

_DM: one sec_

_DM: horrible_

_DM: I’m only getting recipes for shrimp brain sauce_

_DM: who are these people_

**HP: are you coming over later**

_DM: mhm_

**HP: can you bring feta cheese**

_DM: yes_

“I like that you always let me change the conversation when I want,” said Draco, à propos nothing. Harry quietly took another bite of his salad. Draco frowned at the table. 

“It makes it easier to bring things up,” he said, after a moment. 

Harry took a sip of his redcurrant squash. 

“Did you know that muggles have a game called football that they think is quite as important as quidditch?” asked Draco. 

Harry laughed.

“Yes, I did know that. It’s the World Cup this year.”

“Ursula keeps banging on about it.” Draco frowned again. “I wish I could tell her about quidditch.”

“It must have been a relief, at first, that they didn’t know about the war,” said Harry.

“It was,” said Draco. He glanced trustingly up at Harry. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Do you understand the rules of football?” asked Harry.

“No.”

So they went outside after dinner, and Harry showed him—rather badly—how to dribble. 

It was funny, but “I don’t want to talk about it” seemed like immense progress from just changing the subject. It happened several times, over the next few weeks. 

  
_DM: Hugo was tall like that_

**HP: really?**

**HP: taller than you?**

_DM: oh yeah_

_DM: he used to bend his knees a bit sometimes_

_DM: and put his eyes at my level_

_DM: and say “so this is how the world looks to you”_

_DM: it was condescending as fuck_

_DM: I loved it_

**HP: did you love him**

_DM: I_

**HP: you don’t have to answer**

_DM: no I_

_DM: I sort of_

_DM: pretended to be in love with him_

_DM: bc I needed somewhere to stay_

_DM: I made him really fucking sad_

**HP: how long were you together**

_DM: a year_

**HP: your parents found you after 6 months**

**HP: so you wouldn’t have needed him after that**

_DM: yeah well_

_DM: I sorted of pretended to myself as well_

_DM: I was such a shit to him_

**HP: sounds more like you were trying to figure out**

**HP: like**

**HP: your own feelings?**

_DM: can we not_

**HP: sure**

**HP: so what I’m getting from that Hugo anecdote earlier**

**HP: is that you secretly like being condescended to**

_DM: don’t get any fucking ideas_

**HP: aw**

**HP: you’re so cute when you try to be intimidating**

_DM: what have I done_

**HP: shhh sweetheart**

**HP: I’ll take care of you**

_DM: [typing]_

_DM:_

_DM: you’re disturbed_

_DM: and disturbing_

**HP: you like it**

_DM: [typing]_

_DM: [typing]_

_DM: I literally don’t know how to respond to that_

_DM: the depths of your wrongness can not be plumbed_

**HP: lol**

**HP: goodnight Draco**

_DM: night_

  
Another time, they were walking through a field of bluebells, in Kent.

“How many letters do you think you sent me?” asked Draco.

“I was thinking about this the other day,” said Harry. “At least a hundred, right?”

“I’ve got them all. We could count.”

“You kept them?”

“Of course. Who knows when I might need a cheeky hundred grand. They’re money in the bank, Potter.”

“Ha, ha.” Harry trod thoughtfully on. “Did Michael know I wrote to you?” 

“He hated it.”

“Oh,” said Harry. 

“He was mad at me for telling you when he and I got back together,” said Draco, plunging his fists deep into the pockets of his Barbour jacket. “He wanted to keep it a secret.”

Harry looked carefully ahead, not letting his gaze linger on Draco’s face. 

“He wasn’t ashamed of you,” said Harry.

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“I know that he loved you.”

“He probably thought it was glamorous to date a Death Eater, at first,” said Draco bitterly. “A sort of, _Look how over the war I am.”_

Harry shook his head. He remembered that last conversation he’d witnessed, remembered Michael, almost in tears, saying _“It’s you I wanted, why can’t you see…you’re breaking my heart…”_

It just didn’t _seem_ as if Michael had been in it to say he’d dated a Death Eater.

“Anyway,” said Draco. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“These bluebells are nice,” said Harry. Draco laughed.

“ _Nice!_ Harry.”

“They’re, I don’t know, divinely sublime, is that better?”

“Slightly,” said Draco, knocking his hip playfully into Harry’s. “A small improvement.”

It was actually a pretty good night for Ron and Hermione to stage their intervention. Draco was meeting up with Dean, so Harry was at a loose end, anyway.

They didn’t call it an intervention. But they came over and ordered take-out and asked chirpy questions about his job and he knew it was only a matter of time. 

“So,” said Hermione. “Anything new in your life?”

Harry was saved from answering by the doorbell.

“That’ll be the curry,” said Ron. “I’ll get it!”

“Ron says you bought a mobile phone,” said Hermione, as Ron ran around looking for cash.

“I’ve got money,” said Harry, rising to his feet.

“No,” said Ron, who had finally found his muggle wallet. “I got you, mate!”

He left the room.

“He thinks you’re dating someone,” said Hermione.

Then, from the hall, Harry heard the door open, and Ron exclaim _“Malfoy?”_

Harry wasn’t even conscious of how he got to the front hall. 

Draco stood on the doorstep, his hair uncombed and his thumbs poking out through holes in his jumper sleeves. He was looking at Ron, unmistakably devastated.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” asked Ron. “Are you okay? Are you in trouble, or something? Everyone thought you were dead!”

“Draco,” said Harry. Draco’s eyes flicked over to him.

“Sorry,” he said. “Wrong address.”

He disapparated.

“Oh, fuck,” said Harry, returning to the sitting room to look for his phone. He hadn’t seen it all evening. “Fuck, fuck!”

“Harry?” asked Hermione.

“Oh,” said Ron. “It’s Malfoy. You’ve been seeing Malfoy.”

Harry pulled out all the sofa cushions and his phone slipped onto the floor.

“Did you think we would judge you?” asked Hermione. “You know we got on with him, after the war.”

He had six missed calls. 

And then there were the texts.

  
_DM: are you there_

_DM: just got back from meeting with Dean_

_DM: feeling a bit crave-y_

_DM: he was just so much more_

_DM: IN it, still_

_DM: he gave me his address book_

_DM: for safekeeping_

_DM: it’s sitting on the table in front of me_

_DM: it’s making me feel a bit crazy_

_DM: I didn’t have the contacts anymore_

_DM: and now I do_

_DM: they’re all here_

_DM: I could buy anything I wanted_

_DM: I don’t even know what I would buy first_

_DM: (I know exactly what I would buy first)_

_DM: did you ever try cocaine?_

_DM: it feels like magic_

_DM: good mood in a powder_

_DM: as if you deserve it_

_DM: if that makes sense_

_DM: feels genuine_

_DM: like being a good person or something_

_DM: fucking hell, I want to get out of my head so badly_

_DM: are you there_

_DM: I’m so sick of this_

_DM: it’s been fucking YEARS_

_DM: last relapse was when I was 24_

_DM: I was at a party and everyone was off their tits and_

_DM: I don’t know_

_DM: I went to the kitchen and necked a bottle of white wine_

_DM: turned myself in to Ursula a few minutes later_

_DM: she said_

_DM: I could still count the last year of sobriety_

_DM: bc I had been honest_

_DM: Christ I’m feeling sorry for myself_

_DM: you lost all those decent people in the war_

_DM: and here I am, acting as if I have a fucking right to you_

_DM: I must make your skin crawl_

_DM: my skin is crawling, incidentally_

_DM: I feel itchy all over_

_DM: do you think it’ll just be like this, forever_

_DM: trying to stay sober like trying to stay awake when you haven’t slept in days_

_DM: maybe relapsing is inevitable_

_DM: like falling asleep_

_DM: I don’t know why the fuck I’m texting you all this_

_DM: I’ve never told anyone any of it_

_DM: for good reason, probably_

_DM: self-indulgent as fuck_

_DM: oh, Christ_

_DM: I wish you would answer_

_DM: I’m_

_DM: I’m going to stop by_

_DM: is that okay_

_DM: I hope that’s not crossing a line_

_DM: I’m just_

_DM: fucking climbing up the walls here_

_DM: I’m sorry if I’m crossing a line_

Harry put the phone down, his heart hammering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	10. Chapter 10

  
“Harry?” asked Hermione. “Are you okay?”

“I have to…” he said distractedly. He called Draco. Draco didn’t pick up. He called again. Still no answer.

**HP: Draco**

**HP: pick up**

Draco did not pick up. 

**HP: Draco**

**HP: come on**

**HP: I’m freaking out**

Draco called him. 

“Draco!”

“Hey Harry, sorry about that,” said Draco, sounding perfectly friendly and normal. “I shouldn’t have showed up unannounced like that.”

“Where are you?”

“Little Venice,” said Draco. 

“I’m coming.”

“No, don’t, Harry, you have friends over.”

“They’re just leaving,” said Harry. Ron and Hermione exchanged looks and got the floo powder down from the mantle piece.

“Seriously, stay put,” said Draco. “I’m sorry I sent all those texts, I was just being dramatic. I’m a performer; you know how theatrical I get.”

“I’ve never been to Little Venice,” said Harry. Hermione gave him an encouraging little wave as she and Ron stepped into the fireplace and flooed away.

“You’re not missing anything,” said Draco. “Honestly, Harry, don’t come, I mean it.”

“Just tell me where you are.”

So Draco told him, and a minute later Harry was striding along a canal. 

Draco sat on a bench, smoking a cigarette. 

Harry sat next to him.

“Are you still feeling crave-y?” he asked, when it became apparent that Draco was neither going to look at him, nor speak. 

Draco nodded, and Harry noticed that he was holding a small green notebook on his lap. 

“Dean shouldn’t have given that to you,” said Harry.

“He was worried Luna would burn it. It has his drawings in it.” 

He flicked through the notebook with one hand. It was crowded with Dean’s small blue handwriting, and with dark, unsettling ink drawings.

“I don’t think you’ll feel like this forever,” said Harry.

Draco sighed. 

“Do you get cravings often?” asked Harry.

“They’ve been getting better.” Draco tucked his hair behind one ear. “It’s just frustrating. Other people can get a little drunk on a Saturday night without it destroying their lives. They can take a break from themselves.”

“I doubt they see it like that,” said Harry. “It’s probably the escaping part that’s bad, anyway.”

Draco nodded absently. 

“You should, you should go,” he said.

“I don’t want to.”

Draco’s Adam’s apple moved up and down conspicuously. 

“I may have done something stupid,” he said. He put out his cigarette on the ground in front of him, then took out a tissue, wrapped up the stub, and pocketed it, since there wasn’t a bin nearby.

 _I didn’t fall in love with him because he doesn’t litter,_ Harry reminded himself. But then he remembered being high and finding Draco smoking out of a window and noticing that Draco looked for an empty bin to throw the stub away, and he wondered if maybe he had fallen for Draco Malfoy because he didn’t litter.

“I do stupid things all the time,” said Harry.

Draco’s mouth stretched into a tight smile.

“Yes, well.”

There was a cracking sound behind them.

“Ah. That will be my stupid thing,” said Draco. 

“Draco?” said a girl. She wore uneven cat-eye eyeliner, a plastic tiara, and boots made out of shaggy fake fur. “I thought you were dead, baby!”

“Anika,” said Draco, standing. 

“Holy shit,” said Anika. “Is that Harry Potter?”

“Hi,” said Harry, waving uncomfortably.

Anika looked from him to Draco.

“Does he do coke? I didn’t know!”

“Er, no,” said Harry.

“You look good, baby,” said Anika. She climbed over the bench and scooped Draco into a hug. She was sweating a lot, as if she had been dancing. “Did you want to buy something?”

Draco glanced at Harry, who kept his face carefully impassive from his perch on the iron arm of the bench.

“I’ve got some crazy pure Columbian shit, just in,” said Anika. She cast a quick spell so that no one would see them, then got out a small baggie of white powder. “Here, gum it.”

Draco looked at Harry again. Harry didn’t say anything. 

Draco licked a finger and dipped it delicately into the baggie. It came out coated in white powder. He rubbed it into his gums.

He closed his eyes.

“God,” he breathed. 

“Good, right?”

“Fuck,” said Draco. “I missed the taste.”

“Have you been sober, doll?”

“Three years.”

“Wow! You deserve a lil’ sumthin sumthin for that,” she said. She handed him the baggie. “Have it.”

Draco stared at it. 

“How much?”

“You can get me next time,” she said, waving him off. 

Draco looked at Harry again. Harry stared straight ahead. 

“I…” said Draco. His fingers flattened the powder through the plastic. They were trembling. He frowned. “How’ve you been?” he asked Anika. 

“Great, yeah, yeah! Yeah, I’ve been all right. Sad about Dominic, d’you hear about Dominic?”

“Mohawk Dom?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right!”

“What happened to him?”

“OD’d,” she said. “He’d been sober and then relapsed, so his tolerance was low.” Her eyes grew warm with concern. “You be careful with that, yeah?”

Draco held the baggie delicately. He looked at Harry. Harry didn’t say anything. 

“Actually, Anika,” said Draco, “I think I’ll give it a miss, this time.”

Very, very slowly, he held the baggie back out to her.

“You sure?”

“Just take it,” he snapped.

She did. Draco followed the baggie with his eyes as she tucked it into her bra. 

“Anything else I can get you, baby?” she asked.

Draco handed her a galleon.

“I just wanted to see you,” he said. “Here’s for your time.”

“Ah, keep it,” she said, smiling. “You’re such a gentleman. Michael’s a lucky man.”

“I’m not— Michael married someone else. A girl.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Anika. “I know how you loved him.”

“ _Loved_ ,” repeated Draco, with a tense laugh. 

“You’ll find someone else,” said Anika.

Draco laughed again. 

“Thanks for coming out, Anika.”

“Anytime, doll. I’ve missed you. Hey, there’s a crazy shindig this Saturday at the magic warehouse in Camden, one of my friends is bringing mescaline; ever tried mescaline?”

“Yes,” said Draco. 

“Shit, really?”

“Yes.”

Anika smiled admiringly.

“You’ve done everything, literally,” she said.

“Ha,” said Draco.

“Anyway, you should come, on Saturday!”

“I…” Draco looked at Harry. “Do you and I have plans, Saturday, Harry?”

Harry paused before answering. They hadn’t _talked_ about doing anything on Saturday. 

“Yeah,” he said. “We have plans.”

“So,” said Draco, turning to Anika. “I can’t go.”

“Next time, then,” said Anika. “Okay, well, I’m staying with this stupid rich kid, so I’d better get back.”

“I’m a stupid rich kid,” said Draco.

Anika kissed him on the cheek.

“Nah, you’re a sweetheart. See you ‘round, Draco! Really proud of you for getting straight!” She giggled. “I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” said Draco. “See you around, Anika.”

Anika turned to Harry.

“Hey, thank you for saving the world and all that! Lemme know if you ever want to try anything and I’ll give you the best deal!”

“Er, thanks,” said Harry. 

Anika disapparated. 

Draco sank back onto the bench, twitching. 

“How come you didn’t try to stop me?” he asked.

“I trusted you,” said Harry. Draco laughed.

“That’s fucking ridiculous.”

“I was right, though, wasn’t I?”

Draco tossed Dean’s address book at him.

“You keep it.”

“Okay,” said Harry. 

“Don’t let Dean have it back for a few years. Until the contacts are out of date.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll probably try and get it off you before then,” said Draco.

“Maybe you will,” said Harry, “maybe you won’t.”

Draco tilted his head back and sniffed. 

Harry wanted to kiss him so badly. He reminded himself of how Draco had said “loved,” as if the idea of using the past tense with reference to his feelings about Michael was absurd.

“Can you be honest with me,” said Draco. 

Harry nodded. Draco wasn’t looking at him, but Harry knew he saw.

“Do you just spend time with me to punish yourself?” asked Draco.

“What?” asked Harry, his throat dry.

“Is it, like. A survivor’s guilt thing.”

Harry wondered how he could tell Draco he loved him without actually saying that he loved him.

“No,” he said, desperately ineloquent. 

“Weasley didn’t know we’re… whatever this is,” said Draco.

“Friends,” said Harry. 

Draco raised his eyebrows. 

“I don’t tell Ron and Hermione about important things,” said Harry.

“Important things,” repeated Draco. Harry nodded. Draco looked at him. 

“Why did you write me all those letters?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Harry. 

Draco continued to look at him.

“Fair enough,” he said, finally. He broke eye contact to stare at the canal. A muscle in his jaw was going. “I’ll end up calling her again tonight, you know.”

“No, you won’t.”

“I will. I would have taken the coke, too, if you weren’t there.”

“So stay over at mine tonight,” said Harry, like total fucking _martyr_.

Draco’s head jerked up.

“Really?”

“Why not?” said Harry, with the giddy laugh of the condemned. 

Draco swallowed.

“Thanks. Yeah. That’d be… thanks.”

Harry laughed again.

“What?” asked Draco.

“We ordered take-out and then fled the premises,” said Harry.

“You devious criminal.”

“Yeah, seriously.”

Draco was doing this strange things with his fingers where he tapped each one in turn against his thumb, fluttery-quick. 

“I’m sorry I came over like that,” he said. “I felt like such a berk when I realised I’d blown your cover.”

“It wasn’t—I didn’t have a cover. I was glad you came over. You can always come over.”

“I should’ve just. I’m just. I’m sorry.”

“Draco,” said Harry, taking one of Draco’s fluttering, jumping hands. It stilled in his grasp, hot and sweaty. “Anytime. I’m serious. I’m sorry I didn’t see your texts earlier.”

Draco laughed, slightly brokenly.

“I must have sounded absolutely mental.”

“Not more than usual,” said Harry, grinning and dropping Draco’s hand. Draco swatted him.

“Twat,” he said. “All right, let’s go rescue your curry.”

  
Harry gave Draco the room opposite his, and after Draco watched him eat dinner (“ _My mouth is numb,_ ” said Draco), they went to bed. 

Harry turned off the lights and tried to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	11. Chapter 11

He could hear Draco pacing around in his room, occasionally making pained, frustrated noises, as if he were trying and failing to think through some complicated mathematical equation. 

Harry wondered what Draco wore to bed. 

After about forty-five minutes of this, Harry knocked on his door. Draco opened it almost immediately. He was still fully dressed.

“I’m sorry, am I being noisy?” he asked. “I can go home.”

“No,” said Harry. He barged past Draco into the room. It was littered with scraps of paper. Draco held a tortured sheet of stationary and twisted it anxiously in his hands. He hastily vanished the paper on the floor when he saw Harry looking at it.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m just a bit, ah, pent up.”

“Can’t you sleep?”

Draco had started ripping the paper up in his hands again, shedding bits of it on the floor. It didn’t seem as if he knew he was doing it.

“It’s just, ah, that I, ah, remember how to contact Anika,” he said. “So, it’s, ah—I’m trying to think of other things.”

“All right,” said Harry, sighing. “Come and sleep in my room.”

Draco looked instantly relieved. 

“Really? That would be— because I can’t summon her if you’re there, obviously, or at least, I think I’d be less likely to, so it would be—are you sure it’s all right?”

“Yeah,” said Harry. “Come on.”

Draco followed him happily, shedding bits of paper as he walked. Harry took what was left of the sheet out of Draco’s hands when they got to his bedroom.

“Where you writing someone a letter, or something?” he asked. 

Maybe Draco sent Michael letters. Maybe Michael answered back. Maybe three years from now, Michael would show up on Draco’s doorstep—in the rain, sure, why not—and say _“I made a mistake…”_

And Draco would smile properly for the first time in his life, and throw his arms around Michael’s neck, as the music swelled and the rain stopped and the credits rolled.

Harry refocused his attention on Draco.

“No,” Draco was saying. “I needed something to do with my hands. It’s something Hugo taught me.”

“Paper ripping?”

“Something to do with my hands.”

Harry decided not to inquire further. This was already is a disaster, no need for Draco to start describing how Hugo had weaned him off cocaine through the transformative power of his massive cock.

Draco climbed into Harry’s bed, still fully-clothed.

“Want to borrow something to sleep in?”

“Oh,” said Draco. “All right.”

He blushed when Harry passed him a t-shirt and flannel pyjama bottoms. 

“Have you got anything long-sleeved?”

“Draco. I’ve literally paid money to see you naked before. I don’t care about your Mark.”

Draco blushed, if anything, even harder.

“ _I_ care,” he said.

“My long-sleeved ones are in the wash,” said Harry. He caught Draco’s eye. “Draco. It’s fine.”

Draco nodded and slowly started to undress. Harry turned away. Now he thought about it, Draco always wore long sleeves. The only time Harry had seen his Mark had been during Draco’s burlesque performances. 

He heard Draco get into bed and allowed himself to turn around. Draco had already put his arms under the covers. Harry turned off the light and got into bed as well. 

They both lay on their sides, facing each other. Harry could barely make out Draco’s features in the dark.

“What was in Minnesota?” he asked.

“What?”

“You sent me a postcard from Minnesota.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “Clementine was going there to visit her cousin. I asked her to send it for me. I knew you’d find me, if I sent it from London.”

“I assumed it was, like, a rehab place.”

“I didn’t go to rehab.”

“Then… how…?”

Draco dipped his nose quickly beneath the covers, as if he was embarrassed. 

“I just, er, quit.” He paused. “I mean, Hugo was already taking a risk, offering a random guy off the streets a place to stay. He would have kicked me out, if he’d caught me using. So.”

Harry’s eyes were adjusting to the light. He could make out Draco’s slim nose, the long cut across his eye. 

“That’s pretty impressive,” said Harry.

“It, ah. It was hard,” said Draco.

“It’s still hard, seems like.”

“Yeah, I guess, sometimes. Not compared to, like, what you’ve been through, obviously.”

“What?” laughed Harry. “ _Me?_ I’m the hero of the wizarding world. People bother me at the pub sometimes and I go home and freak out about it like an idiot.”

“Oh, come on, Harry, obviously you know what I mean. All the war stuff. And before. And your childhood. Your _parents_.”

Harry couldn’t think of anything to say.

“You’re so well-adjusted, it’s ridiculous,” said Draco, his voice growing quieter.

“I’m a recluse,” said Harry. 

“You made divisional head of aurors at _twenty-six_. That’s incredible. If I’d had to live through half the shit you did, I would’ve jumped off a bridge already.”

“You wouldn’t have,” said Harry, urgently. “Draco. You wouldn’t.”

“I’m just saying. So what if you’re not a social butterfly? You’re smashing it.”

Harry knew why Ron and Hermione didn’t praise him when he did well at his job. He knew it was because he had gone overboard, and in retrospect, he didn’t disagree with them.

But it was still something he had missed. Praise; glowing and unadulterated. 

“So are you,” he said. Draco laughed. 

“Yes, living out my boyhood dreams of stripping!” He raised his eyebrows. “Although I guess it’s true that my parents know I’m gay and haven’t disinherited me.” 

“Was that a boyhood dream?”

“Oh, 100%. Seemed hopelessly out of reach.”

“What else did you dream about?

Draco laughed again.

“Being friends with _you_ , of course,” he said sarcastically. But Harry knew the ways in which Draco told the truth. Quickly, or while busy with something else, or as a joke. In any case, even in the dark, Harry could see his expression.

“Oh, of course,” said Harry, breathlessly.

“Why didn’t you tell Ron and Hermione about me, _really?”_ asked Draco suddenly.

“I told you,” said Harry. Draco snorted. “Because you’re important.”

When Draco made another derisive noise, Harry reached out to flick his nose. That was his intention; a friendly nose-flick. But he had misjudged the distance in the dark, and instead his index landed gently on the bridge of Draco’s nose, and began to stroke slowly down. 

Draco was very, very still.

Harry’s finger seemed to move of its own accord. It slid down the side of Draco’s nose, feeling the smooth skin turn into rough scar on his cheek, and then it followed the scar down, down to Draco’s chin, which Draco lifted slightly, just slightly, with a barely audible sigh, and then it slid over the sharp ridge of Draco’s jawline, still following the place where Harry had once cracked him open, down Draco’s neck, slowly, slowly—Draco was holding his breath, so was Harry, probably, he wasn’t sure—and then the scar blighted its way over Draco’s fine collar bone, and Harry followed it, reaching the neck of Draco’s t-shirt—he hesitated—

“Well, goodnight, then,” said Draco.

He turned abruptly over, so that his back was to Harry.

“Goodnight,” said Harry, miserably.

They both pretended to go to sleep.

The next morning they acted as if nothing unusual had happened. Neither of them were morning people, so they griped at each other over their tea and went their separate ways. 

  
_DM: Save me Saviour, Save Me!_

**HP: hello**

**HP: it’s me**

**HP: the saviour**

**HP: what saving will you be requiring today**

_DM: one of my co-workers wants to sleep with me_

_DM: and I don’t know how to tell him I don’t want to_

_DM: without hurting his feelings_

  
“You okay, Harry?” asked Bianca.

“Yeah,” said Harry.

“You look as if you’re going to be sick!”

“‘fine,” muttered Harry. He waited until she had turned away to pull out his phone from his lap. He did feel a bit ill, in fact, because he knew perfectly well what Draco was doing; knew perfectly well that there was no co-worker Draco was trying to let down gently. 

_This_ was Draco letting him down gently. 

**HP: lol**

**HP: tell him to fuck off?**

_DM: no bc_

_DM: I don’t want to hurt his feelings_

_DM: or lose his friendship_

_DM: I really like him_

_DM: I just don’t do casual sex_

**HP: er**

**HP: how do you know he wants casual sex**

_DM: [typing]_

_DM:_

_DM: I mean what else could he want_

**HP:**

**HP: maybe**

**HP: he wants to date you**

_DM: that_

_DM: seems unlikely_

_DM: for a variety of reasons?_

**HP: I don’t think so**

_DM: no I’m really pretty sure it would just be a shag_

_DM: like once he got down to it_

_DM: bc it would be messy and complicated and_

_DM: he tends to walk away from that kind of thing_

_DM: these days_

**HP: Draco, come on**

**HP: that’s not fair**

_DM: so_

_DM: just casual sex_

_DM: which I don’t do_

**HP: I think the relevant question here is**

**HP: do you do**

**HP: like**

**HP: not-casual sex**

**HP: like extremely-serious-i’m-in-love-with-you sex**

  
**HP: Draco**

_DM: yeah I would do that_

_DM: except Michael’s married_

_DM: so I can’t_

**HP: [typing]**

**HP: [typing]**

**HP: oh**

_DM: Yeah._

**HP: what about Hugo**

_DM: I fucked him up_

_DM: I don’t get another chance_

_DM: I’ve had so many chances_

_DM: I don’t just get to keep hurting people_

_DM: I’ve used up my quota_

**HP: you won’t**

_DM: I’m not over Michael, Harry_

_DM: not by a long shot_

**HP: so?**

**HP: there’s tons of shit I’m not over**

**HP: it’s not like you’re being deceitful**

**HP: your**

**HP: co-worker**

**HP: knows what he’s getting into**

_DM: I can’t_

**HP: bc you don’t want to?**

_DM: because I can’t_

**HP: Draco**

_DM: g2g ttyl_

  
It was time, Harry realised, as he reread the conversation for the fourteenth time, to start telling Ron and Hermione about important things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	12. Chapter 12

“So what’s his plan? Never go out with anyone, ever again?” said Ron. 

It was Thursday. They were at a pub. Hermione had cast a few charms so that they wouldn’t be overheard.

“I guess,” said Harry.

Hermione scrolled through the texts again. 

“Maybe he was _actually_ talking about a co-worker,” said Ron, hopefully.

“I think it’s pretty clear he’s not,” said Hermione. “But I also think you have a chance, Harry.”

“You do?”

“Yes. There’s a time lag whenever you mention wanting something more serious.”

“Because he’s trying to figure out how to let me down gently!”

“Or because he’s happy, then talking himself out of it,” said Hermione.

“Let me see again,” said Ron. Hermione handed him the phone. 

“I shouldn’t have felt him up in bed,” said Harry into his pint glass. Ron glanced up sharply.

“Don’t phrase it like that, mate. It was only his neck, right? You said it was only his neck.”

“He was vulnerable. I took advantage.”

“Maybe,” said Hermione. She sighed. “I wish I could see the two of you together, it would be so much easier to gauge.”

“He has a show tomorrow, why don’t you guys come?”

Ron made a choking sound.

“He gets _naked!”_

“You won’t spontaneously become gay if you see a man in a thong, Ron,” said Harry drily.

“That’s—I don’t—it’s _Malfoy!”_ At Harry’s expression, he ploughed on. “Hey! Look, I haven’t said anything about you being in love with him or whatever. But just because _you_ want to see his dick doesn’t mean I do.”

“You won’t see it! And his burlesque is important to him!”

“Which means it’s important to you,” said Hermione, with a stern look at Ron. “So of course we’ll come. That’s a good idea, Harry. And you need to contact Michael Corner.”

“What?”

“Draco hasn’t seen him since they were twenty-two. He’s probably spent four years idolising him. He needs to realise that Michael’s only human.”

“But what if they see each other and immediately start shagging?”

“Then you’ll have your answer,” said Hermione. “I can’t deny that I’d rather you fell for someone else, Harry. I don’t want him to waste your time.”

“ _I_ do!”

“No,” said Hermione, softly. “You want him to love you back.”

He hadn’t actually mentioned that he was in love with Draco. Not explicitly. Except in that text, he supposed. 

He hadn’t seen Draco since the whole touching-his-neck-soulfully-in-the-dark thing, but they had been texting normally, sort of, except they continually butted up against forbidden topics and moved away from them imperfectly.

**HP: sometimes the criminals are so clever I kind of want to let them get away with it**

_DM: tell me everything_

**HP: I can’t**

**HP: it’s classified**

_DM: how do people in your job have happy marriages_

**HP: serious partners get security clearance**

_DM: what counts as a serious partner_

**HP: I don’t know**

**HP: I’ve never felt serious about anyone**

**HP: before**

**HP: I mean**

**HP: uh**

_DM: why is crime always so sexy in books_

_DM: but so Crying In The Bathroom in real life?_

**HP: technically you weren’t really a criminal**

**HP: bc vold. had taken over the government?**

_DM: not till that summer_

**HP: it’s not crime if it’s during a war tho**

_DM: war crimes?_

**HP: lol I hardly think you qualify**

_DM: terrorist maybe_

_DM: that’s a muggle word_

_DM: there was this whole Thing the year before I ran away_

_DM: with these_

_DM: like_

_DM: muggle Death Eaters? On planes?_

**HP: yeah don’t call Al-Qaeda muggle Death Eaters**

_DM: oh so you know_

“Harry?” prompted Hermione.

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I want him to love me back.”

  
**HP: ok if I bring Ron and Hermione tonight**

_DM: you’re still coming?_

**HP: er**

_DM: I want you to!!_

_DM: I was just_

_DM: checking_

**HP: yeah I mean I was planning on it**

_DM: :)_

_DM: and obvi great if R & H want to come too_

_DM: actually I wanted to talk to you_

_DM: the person running the gig asked_

_DM: if I could do the knife act_

**HP: okay?**

_DM: well I wanted to check with you_

_DM: bc obviously_

_DM: it’s a bit_

_DM: I don’t know_

_DM: uncomfortable_

_DM: for you, maybe_

**HP: I wish I could show you how sorry I am**

_DM: [picture of miserable wet cat in a bath]_

**HP: I know how you hate those scars**

_DM: look at this poor cat_

_DM: it just wishes it were dry_

_DM: no one’s ever been sadder than this cat, I’m p. sure_

**HP: you never believe me**

**HP: when I tell you how good looking you are**

**HP: but you are**

**HP: you’re**

**HP: it’s**

_DM: what’s weird is that in nature, cats can swim_

_DM: I wonder why they hate water so much_

**HP: fucking ridiculous**

**HP: how attractive you are**

_DM: maybe I should get a cat_

**HP: yeah maybe**

**HP: what kind**

_DM: hostile and disdainful_

**HP: well, obviously**

_DM: I want this cat_

_DM: [picture of a cat with a hideous snarling face]_

**HP: what an angel**

**HP: we should go to a shelter and pick one out**

**HP: I’m kind of serious**

_DM: I’m not_

_DM: I can barely keep myself alive_

**HP: I love y**

Harry backspaced.

**HP: lol**

**HP: I think you’re doing all right**

_DM: Thank you._

  
Hermione cried during Draco’s act. Ron just stared, open-mouthed.

“Well,” he said, as the lights came up at the end of the show. “That was fucking harrowing.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, smiling, “he’s brilliant, isn’t he?”

“I didn’t know it had scarred his face,” said Hermione. 

Harry frowned; he hadn’t realised he had never told them. When Draco first showed them to him, all those years ago at Zacharias Smith’s weird country manor party, he had been too horrified to tell anyone. More recently, he had sort of stopped seeing Draco’s scars. He barely noticed them through the general barrage of his good looks. 

“Yeah, fuck,” said Ron. “That other woman was incredible, too, the swan lady?”

“Ursula,” said Harry.

“I think I really like burlesque?”

Harry laughed, and led them towards the dressing room, warning Ron about the boobs. 

“Right,” said Ron, steeling himself.

“Oh, and Draco’s always a bit spacey after a show,” said Harry. 

Hermione nodded.

“That makes sense,” she said. “Stage high.”

Harry had never thought about it that way.

Draco smiled so easily when he saw Harry.

“You came,” he said, sounding surprised, even though Harry had told him repeatedly that he would. Draco was disorientingly beautiful, like some genderless, inhuman creature, gracefully sweeping towards Harry in emerald green robes and stage make up. He took Harry’s outstretched hands—Harry wasn’t aware that he had been reaching—and kissed him on both cheeks. Harry didn’t read too much into it. Draco was like this after shows, sometimes, ostentatiously gay, as if still half on stage. 

“That was amazing, mate,” said Ron.

“Oh!” said Draco, smiling still, mellow and trusting, “thank you!” 

Harry remembered how solemn Draco had been when Harry found him, that first time. There was a world of difference between how he had reacted to Harry then, and how he chattered away to Hermione, now. 

Harry wondered what the change was. He suspected it was that Draco knew Harry wouldn’t have brought them if they were going to be dicks.

“It was a clever charm,” said Hermione. Draco laughed and shushed her, glancing around at the crowded dressing room.

“Are you all coming to Mars?” he asked.

“It’s a tolerant late-night restaurant,” explained Harry.

“That sounds lovely,” said Hermione.

Draco beamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	13. Chapter 13

  
Draco sat next to Harry, stole his fries, knocked his knee into his under the table. Frankly, thought Harry, Draco was leading him on, but Harry didn’t mind. Draco was louder and more talkative than he usually was after shows, clearly showing off for Ron and Hermione. 

It was working. Ron and Hermione laughed a lot.

“Draco,” said Harry, reckless. “How did you get your scars?”

Hermione made a tiny, high-pitched sound. Ron’s fork fell from his fingers. 

Draco only lowered his long false eyelashes with a demure look.

“Oh, Harry. No one wants to hear that old story again.”

Of course, the assembled burlesque dancers protested vociferously, and Draco smiled a lazy smile. 

“All right, all right, settle down, children.”

Ron looked very pale under his freckles. Hermione was staring avidly at Draco, as if he was a special guest lecturer at the Department of Mysteries. 

Draco cleared his throat.

“The year? 1996. The place? Scotland.”

Harry suddenly wondered if he had misjudged. 

“I was part of a vicious criminal gang.”

Several people laughed.

“What did you do, throw glitter at people?” asked Rain. 

“Oh, no,” said Draco. “Let’s not diminish the gravity of my evil. It was a despicable group, and I was at the centre of it.”

“One of those famous, sixteen-year-old criminal masterminds,” said Ursula.

“Yes,” said Draco. “And one day, I was busy plotting my latest black-hearted deed—”

“Draco,” interrupted Harry. “You’re telling the story wrong.”

“Shhh,” said Mark. “It’s just getting good.”

“—when I was interrupted at my scheming by a handsome young policeman. His burning eyes saw straight into my malevolent soul!”

“Draco—”

“No, listen, Harry, it’s important,” said Draco, no longer smiling, but horribly, devastatingly serious. Harry lightly touched the back of his hand. 

“Where was I?” asked Draco, looking at the place where their skin touched.

“Your malevolent soul,” said Ursula.

“Oh, yes. He saw straight into my malevolent soul, into my small-minded, cruel, ignorant, meaningless little heart—”

Draco broke off and swallowed. Everyone had become very quiet, all of a sudden.

“You’re telling the story wrong,” said Harry again.

“No, no, I’m just trying to remember the specifics. Let’s see. I was holding… a gun.”

“Where did you get it?” asked Mark. 

“It was an antique,” answered Draco at once, and Harry wondered faintly how he would ever explain to Draco how charming he found him, how creative and marvellous. “It was actually an old Nazi gun from WWII. Very dangerous. Very valuable. Very symbolic. Distressed to have been apprehended whilst I toiled away at my nefarious wrong-doings, I shot the handsome young policeman! In self-defence, he—”

“You’re telling the story wrong,” said Harry a third time, but Draco didn’t even look at him.

“He drew his— his _sword!”_

“Why did he have a sword?” asked Mark. 

“He had just come from arresting a group of luddite murderers who only believed in killing with pre-Renaissance weaponry,” said Draco, promptly. 

“That checks out,” said Mark. “Go on.”

“I was still holding my gun! Who knew what I might do next! The handsome young policeman hacked valiantly away at my villainous visage, until he could safely escape, and thank God he did! For later, that very policeman—” Draco leant conspiratorially forward— “disbanded the _entire gang_ of vicious criminals! To think, I might have killed him, and how much untold tragedy might then have unfolded! My face was small price to pay.”

Everyone around the table except for Harry, Ron and Hermione was smiling again, convinced that Draco was playing his usual game. 

“For years, I hid the scars with magic, ah, the magic of make-up. Because I was vain, and cowardly. But in my blackened heart, thick with wicked misdeeds though it was, I knew.”

Harry drew his fingers through Draco’s, who stopped talking momentarily to stare at their clasped hands.

“Knew what?” asked Ursula, in a small voice.

“That they served as a good reminder,” said Draco, and he looked suddenly up—straight at Ron and Hermione. “Of the people I had harmed.”

“Oh, Draco,” said Ursula.

Draco shook his hand out of Harry’s and smiled widely.

“So, my beauty was sacrificed on the altar of my cruelty,” he said, with a grandiose gesture at his face. “Penance for a life ill-lived. And _that_ is the story of how I got my scars.”

There was a long silence. Ron and Hermione looked completely shell-shocked. Ursula looked as if she wanted to cry. Mark looked as if he was struggling not to crawl across the table and wrap Draco up in a hug.

Draco dropped his eyes to his neatly folded hands.

“Yeah, nice try, mate,” said Mark roughly. “Still not as good as the one about the magic wand fight in the bathroom.”

The spell broke. Everyone laughed, although Harry was keenly aware that the quality of the laughter was different, that Draco’s friends knew something he had said was true, amid all the storytelling. 

“You know we think you’re hot shit, yeah, Draco?” said Ursula.

“I should think so,” said Draco lightly. “I did win The Golden Pricktease Award at the Shrewsbury Burlesque competition, after all.”

“There are burlesque competitions?” asked Harry, because he knew Draco was trying to get away from that awful, staring truthfulness. 

“Oh, Harry,” said Draco, with a pitying look. “Of _course_ there are.”

  
When Ron and Hermione left, Draco walked them to the front of Mars to bid them goodbye.

“Thank you for coming,” he said earnestly. 

“It was amazing,” said Ron. “I’d love to see your other acts.” 

Draco smiled.

“Yeah, wow, of course, ah, Harry can let you know…?”

“He should come to that Brighton gig you’re doing on Thursday,” said Harry. 

“Oh, yeah, perfect.”

Hermione was watching Harry closely. 

“I’m going to stick around,” he told her.

“Of course,” she said. 

“Thank you for coming,” said Draco again. “I—”

His eyes flicked from Hermione to Ron and back again.

“I can’t tell you how, how awfully sorry I am,” he said, all in a rush. “I haven’t forgotten, I—”

Hermione stopped him by touching him gently on the arm. 

“We know,” she said. 

“I wish—”

“It’s really fine, mate,” said Ron. 

Draco bit his lip.

“You’ve… you’ve done this before, you know, Draco,” said Hermione, delicately. “Apologised. Often. When we were younger, at parties.”

“That didn’t count,” said Draco dismissively.

Hermione rubbed his arm and caught hold of his hand.

“Of course it did. I’m very glad to see you again. You’ve taken such good care of Harry for us.”

“I haven’t,” said Draco, sounding panicked, and Harry laughed.

“See you on Thursday,” said Ron. “Is it a different act?”

Draco was still staring at Hermione. 

“It—yeah, I’m trying something new. It’s. I’m a sexy onion.”

Harry laughed so hard he had to rest his head on Draco’s shoulder.

“You’re doing that? I thought that was a joke!”

“It’s _extremely_ artistic,” said Draco. 

“Tear gas and all?”

“No, I decided against that, in the end. There were legal complications.”

Hermione hugged Draco goodbye, and Ron did a sort of masculine back-hitting thing, and they left.

“Should I not have asked about the scars?” asked Harry, at the same time as Draco asked, “Have I fucked everything up?”

They both laughed a little sheepishly, and returned to the table without answering each other.

  
“How that boy doesn’t know he’s in love with you is beyond me,” said Hermione, the next day, at lunch. 

It was nice meeting her for lunch. Easy. He wondered if they could do it more often. 

“Do you really think so?” asked Harry. 

“He couldn’t stop _looking_ at you.”

“He just gets a bit like that, after shows.”

“Remember how he only ever used to tell the truth when he was high?”

“You’re suggesting that when he’s on an adrenaline rush, he lets himself behave the way he secretly wants to?”

“Yes,” said Hermione. “That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.”

  
**HP: the year?**

**HP: 1996**

**HP: the place?**

**HP: Scotland**

_DM: Harry_

**HP: no no**

**HP: you told it all wrong yesterday**

**HP: now it’s my turn**

_DM: Harry_

**HP: I was a confused, frustrated teenager**

**HP: with**

**HP: like**

**HP: really quite a lot of pressure on me**

_DM: I’ll give you that_

**HP: and everything was out of my control**

**HP: except for this one thing**

**HP: which was trying to stop this guy**

**HP: from doing**

**HP: as you termed it**

**HP: nefarious, er**

_DM: misdeeds_

**HP: exactly**

**HP: I’m at work btw**

_DM: me too_

**HP: I’ve closed the office door and am pretending to be looking over evidence for a pretty feral murder that happened three days ago in Hammersmith**

_DM: seems unprofessional, frankly_

**HP: oh definitely**

**HP: but in fairness this murderer’s only been targeting other murderers**

**HP: ok**

**HP: so**

**HP: 1996**

**HP: no one would listen to me**

**HP: and also there was this whole thing going on with an old potions textbook, I’m not going to go into it**

**HP: but basically I had seen this spell written down**

**HP: and I wanted to try it out**

**HP: and I was angry and**

**HP: this guy, he was the only part of the whole horrible ordeal that I could**

**HP: like**

**HP: access?**

_DM: I’m_

_DM: I’m at work, Harry_

_DM: I get that you_

_DM: have a right to_

_DM: to tell me the things I_

_DM: did wrong but_

**HP: this isn’t about what you did wrong**

_DM: why are we doing this over text_

**HP: bc we might have to look at each other if we did it in person**

_DM: touché_

**HP: so**

**HP: one day**

**HP: I found this guy crying in a bathroom**

**HP: and I should note that I had been following him everywhere and spending**

**HP: like**

**HP: quite a lot of time noticing that he wasn’t doing too well**

_DM: were you secretly in love with him_

**HP: how long have you wanted to ask me that**

_DM: a while_

**HP: no**

**HP: I don’t think I was, tbh**

**HP: I think I really hated him**

_DM: you didn’t like_

_DM: hate that you thought he was hot_

**HP: no**

_DM: yeah cool me neither_

**HP: lol**

**HP: so he was crying in the bathroom**

_DM: you’ve said that already_

_DM: you’re a shit storyteller_

**HP: give me a break**

**HP: I’m not an artist**

**HP: he was crying in the bathroom**

**HP: and when he saw me**

_DM: I’m sorry_

**HP: this is really not the part of my story where you apologise**

**HP: there are other places for that**

_DM: I know_

**HP: no no no**

**HP: I’m not being like Oh You Have So Much To Apologise For**

_DM: I do though_

**HP: that’s not what I’m saying**

**HP: like**

_DM: I would have cursed you_

**HP: look stop bloody interrupting**

**HP: fucking hell**

**HP: respect the craft**

_DM: lol_

**HP: so this guy, he reacted**

**HP: strongly**

**HP: to being walked in on**

**HP: and yeah I’ll be honest I was p shocked that**

**HP: he was aiming an unforgivable at me**

**HP: it felt like**

_DM: shit got real_

**HP: yeah.**

_DM: I was so scared_

_DM: I’m not like_

_DM: trying to make excuses_

_DM: like I brought this on myself, I know that_

**HP: you’re ridiculous**

**HP: I threw this spell at him**

**HP: the one I’d been dying to use**

**HP: the one that was marked “for enemies”**

**HP: and it was**

**HP: unbelievably irresponsible**

**HP: and I should have known better**

**HP: and when I heard you**

**HP: making those sounds Draco I just**

**HP: it was like**

**HP: honestly it was like the moment when I touched the portkey in 4th year**

**HP: and knew instantly I’d made a terrible mistake**

**HP: and there was so much blood**

**HP: and I thought you were going to die**

**HP: and what’s really fucked up is how quickly I moved on from it**

**HP: and I fucking resented having to do DETENTION**

**HP: and I know you haven’t forgiven me**

**HP: have you**

**HP: yeah I knew that**

_DM: you haven’t forgiven me either_

**HP: you can hate the first chapter of a book and still like the book**

_DM: what if it’s the first, like, 23 chapters_

**HP: there’s really only so bigoted you can have been as a baby**

_DM: lol_

_DM: I guess_

**HP: also by the end of the war you were different**

_DM: I_

_DM: am at work_

_DM: I really_

_DM: can’t go into all the_

_DM: things I’m ashamed of, rn_

**HP: the point is that I never even apologised properly**

_DM: you did_

_DM: that letter_

_DM: remember? after zacharias smith’s weird country manor party_

**HP: it’s fucked up that I didn’t apologise at the time**

**HP: it’s fucked up that I nearly killed you and still didn’t really feel sympathy for you**

**HP: shit ok Hammersmith murderer just struck again wtf**

**HP: who murders ppl in the afternoon?**

_DM: I know you’re trying to be funny but like_

_DM: that’s actually kind of callous_

**HP: yeah I took it too far**

**HP: I sensed that when I sent it**

**HP: I have to go**

**HP: I’m sorry**

**HP: for hurting you**

**HP: I wish I hadn’t**

**HP: I wish I could undo it**

_DM: it’s not exactly that I don’t forgive you_

**HP: no I know**

**HP: I get it**

**HP: trust**

_DM: go solve your murder case_

**HP: see you tonight?**

_DM: yes_

_DM: can we never talk about this again_

**HP: we can talk more if you want**

**HP: oh**

**HP: lol yes**

**HP: Draco**

**HP: you know that I**

_DM: srsly murderer on the loose_

**HP: right**

**HP: good point**

**HP: ttyl**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	14. Chapter 14

Michael Corner and Susan Bones were delighted to see him. Harry always forgot that anyone who had been in the DA thought of him as a friend. They didn’t question why he was there; it seemed natural to them. 

“You look great!” said Michael, as Susan congratulated him on his promotion. 

“Thanks,” said Harry. 

They lived in a cute little flat with a lot of sunlight and movie posters. Susan was quite visibly pregnant.

“Congratulations,” said Harry. Susan smiled happily.

“Thank you! We’re so excited.”

They caught up for ten minutes before Susan left the room to make tea.

“I actually came here because I’ve, er, been hanging out with Draco,” said Harry, when she was gone.

Michael jolted.

“He’s _alive?”_

Harry nodded.

“He’s… oh, fuck,” said Michael, looking as if the whole world was coming undone beneath him. “How is he?”

“Sober.”

Michael stared at him in disbelief.

“Sober?”

“Yeah. Three years.”

Michael’s face was frozen in an expression of mingled horror and surprise. He closed his mouth tightly.

“We’d better wait till Susan gets back, she’ll want to hear,” he said. 

“Okay,” said Harry, relieved not to have to keep Draco a secret from her.

They sat in silence until Susan returned with the tea tray. 

“Draco’s sober, apparently,” said Michael.

“He’s alive?” asked Susan.

“Yep,” said Harry. “He’s doing really well, actually. He works in an art gallery and does burlesque.”

Susan had her hand on Michael’s knee.

“Are you okay?” she asked him quietly.

“I’m fine,” he said. “It’s fine.”

“He doesn’t know I’m here,” said Harry.

“Are you guys dating?”

“No,” said Harry.

“You shouldn’t,” said Susan. “He’s a piece of work.”

“That’s not fair,” said Michael. Susan sighed, stroking her stomach.

“No, I know,” she said. Then, to Harry: “he treated Michael so badly.”

“I didn’t even want to tell my friends when I got back together with him,” said Michael, “because everyone disapproved of him so much.”

“Because he was a Death Eater?” asked Harry. Michael shook his head.

“No,” he said. “Because he was an alcoholic drug addict. He got so wasted at my sister’s wedding that St Mungo’s had to send healers to pick him up. I mean, not that that was unusual. But I had begged him to keep it together, and he just… couldn’t.”

Susan squeezed his hand. 

“He’s been sober for over three years,” said Harry.

“That’s great,” said Michael. “I’m really proud of him.” But there was something off about the way he said it. He stood and went to look out the window. “I begged him to quit, and he never would. I’m glad he finally found something to quit for, whatever that was.”

“I think it was you breaking up with him,” said Harry. Michael scoffed.

“Please,” he said. “We’d broken up before, and the same thing always happened. He’d quit for a month or two, we’d get back together, he’d hit the wall, relapse, and lie to me about it for months.” He frowned at Harry. “You’re positive he’s sober? Because he’s a good fucking liar.”

“I’m positive,” said Harry. 

“What the fuck,” said Michael. “Why couldn’t he have…”

“You did everything you could,” said Susan.

“I know,” said Michael. “I’m sorry, Harry, this is just a lot. He really messed with my head.”

“I, er,” said Harry, feeling hopelessly out of his depth, “I think it might be good for him to see you again.”

Susan froze, but didn’t say anything.

“Why?” asked Michael.

“He’s a bit, er, stuck in the past,” said Harry. “It’d be good for him to see that you’ve moved on, I think.”

“I don’t… I don’t even know him, Harry. I never fucking knew him. First he was this bigoted twat, and he told me that wasn’t really him. Then he was a literal Death Eater, and he told me that wasn’t really him, either. But the whole time I was with him, he was sober like, five times. He was never himself. So who the fuck is he?”

“He’s…” said Harry, “he’s Draco. He’s difficult and playful. He’s fun in groups. He finds it hard to talk about important things.”

“Yeah,” said Michael. “Yeah, I know all that.” He turned to Susan. “What do you think?”

“Do you want to see him?”

“I’ve worried about him.”

Susan looked at Harry.

“Is he still in love with Michael?”

“Er, I don’t feel like that’s… for me to say?”

“He does _burlesque?”_ asked Michael.

“Yeah. He’s amazing. Ron and Hermione came and saw a show with me the other day.”

“I thought for sure he was dead,” said Michael. “He was so reckless—he must have overdosed a dozen times—”

“I think you should see him,” said Susan.

“We can talk about it,” said Michael.

“It’s fine,” said Susan. “I trust you, even if I don’t trust him.”

“Let me give you his number,” said Harry. “Don’t reach out until I’ve checked it’s okay with him, though.”

“Okay,” said Michael. “Yeah. Good.”

As Harry left, Michael hugged him hard.

“Just be careful,” he said. “Draco isn’t a bad person, but he’s been drowning a long time, and people sink trying to save him.”

All the way home, Harry thought of different ways he could answer that. 

  
**HP: I just saw Michael and Susan**

**HP: Draco?**

_DM: how was he_

**HP: they’re having a baby**

_DM: but WE’RE still babies_

**HP: lol I know**

**HP: it’s mental that people have started having kids**

**HP: my parents had me when they were like TWENTY**

_DM: shivers_

**HP: I thought**

**HP: maybe**

**HP: you might want to talk to Michael**

_DM: he’s married_

**HP: that’s why I said “talk”**

**HP: not “fuck slowly in a hotel room”**

_DM: strong visual_

_DM: um_

_DM: not sure it’s a good idea_

**HP: bc?**

_DM: bc what if I offer to fuck him slowly in a hotel room?_

**HP: I reckon you’ll be able to control yourself**

**HP: he’s got this weird facial hair thing going on**

_DM: why are you pushing this_

**HP: I have my reasons**

_DM: that’s what I’m worried about_

**HP: look I just think**

**HP: you might have built him up a bit**

**HP: in your head**

**HP: and this might give you some closure**

_DM: closure’s a myth_

**HP: think about it**

_DM: okay_

_DM: meanwhile_

_DM: [meme of a cat asking for a cheezburger]_

**HP: I don’t get it**

_DM: neither do I_

_DM: wanted to check I wasn’t being blood purist_

**HP: no that’s defo stupid**

_DM: good good_

_DM: as you were_

**HP: are you coming over later**

**HP: can we have cheeseburgers**

_DM: yes. to both_

_DM: god I’m so broody for a cat Harry_

**HP: get one!**

**HP: GET ONE.**

_DM: NO_

**HP: just a little one**

_DM: do you know what I ate for breakfast today Harry_

_DM: a cucumber_

_DM: bc that was all I had in the house_

_DM: whence came the cucumber? I know not_

**HP: cats are easy**

_DM: did you not just listen to the cucumber story Harry_

**HP: if you get 2 cats they keep each other company**

_DM: get your own cat_

**HP: no way**

**HP: too much responsibility**

_DM: haha_

_DM: you’re great_

  
_DM: was that a weird thing to say_

**HP: no sorry something came up at work**

_DM: with the murderer?_  
  
**HP: yeah**

**HP: we’re identifying the victims**

**HP: cos he does something weird to their face**

**HP: it’s pretty horrible actually**

**HP: you think I’m great!**

_DM: lies_

_DM: ok I’ll stop distracting you_

_DM: see you later_

The murder case was distressing. There had been three kills so far, all young men, and the murderer had left notes on their bodies enumerating their crimes. Their faces he cut off and sewed onto the next victim, which warped the features enough so that they weren’t really recognisable. It was classified, so he couldn’t disclose details to Draco that night, as they sat in Draco’s flat, eating cheeseburgers. 

“Are you thinking about work?” asked Draco.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Harry, and so Draco monologued for twenty minutes about a new routine he was working on, where he’d begin in a suit of armour. He showed Harry different fabric options and gesticulated too much and said ridiculous things and generally made Harry forget about the warped skin faces of the murdered young men. Harry lounged on a pile of cushions on the floor as Draco put on about a million woolly scarves and took them off again to prove that anything could be sexy. Draco strutted around the small flat, tossing his head and making grand pronouncements like “Wool. Don’t fuck with it… but don’t fuck _without_ it, baby!”

“You’re the weirdest person I’ve ever met,” said Harry, through tears of laughter; actual fucking tears.

“New act idea—”

“—No. Stop. I’m going to piss myself.”

“No, it’s a really good one!”

“Better than Scarf-face?”

“So much better. Okay. So I ooze onto the stage—”

  
An hour later, they both lay on the cushions on the floor, lazily talking about nothing. Harry yawned.

“Are you staying over?” asked Draco, casually.

“Er, probably not a good idea.”

Draco made a shrugging sort of sound.

“Suit yourself. God, you know what else annoys me about first year university students? They’re so fucking _hopeful_. Like they’ll come into the gallery, all _I’m planning to be a famous artist_ , and—”

“I’d probably offer to fuck you slowly in a hotel room,” said Harry. “If I stayed.”

Draco laughed uncomfortably.

“I thought we were skirting around this issue.”

Harry didn’t answer. Draco propped himself up on one elbow, leaning over Harry. He brushed Harry’s hair out of his face and pressed his index finger, cold and slender, against Harry’s lightning bolt scar.

“Voldemort used to do that,” said Harry. 

Draco flopped back into the pillows with an enormous sigh.

“People get divorces, sometimes,” he said.

“They’re not getting a divorce. They’re having a baby.”

“Maybe we should give each other some space.”

Harry closed his eyes.

“Do you want space?” he managed to ask. 

There was a long silence. Then:

“You’re the only person I’ve ever wanted _in_ my space,” said Draco.

“What about Michael?”

“Are you joking? I was terrified he’d figure out how awful I am.”

“You don’t worry about that, with me?”

“Harry,” said Draco, so unhappily that Harry turned his head to look at him, “you already _know.”_

They looked at each other miserably few seconds. Harry wasn’t sure who broke away first. It seemed as if they both looked away at the same time.

“I can keep skirting around it,” said Harry.

“Just until it goes away,” said Draco.

“It’s not going to,” said Harry.

“Only because you’re not meeting other people. You should meet other people.”

“I don’t want other people,” said Harry.

“You will. They’re great. You’re going to love them.”

“Them?”

“The people. The other people. Maybe we should go to a sex party,” said Draco.

“You’re not platonically escorting me to a sex party, Draco. I draw the line.”

Draco laughed, and Harry was able to laugh too, then. He sat up. 

“I should go home.”

Draco stayed where he was on the floor. Long pale hair gleaming around his shoulders. Beautiful, quiet, still. 

“Night, then,” said Harry.

“Harry.”

Harry looked at him expectantly. Draco opened his mouth several times, and each time shut it again, looking progressively more frustrated.

“I don’t want to treat you badly,” he said, finally.

“I think you’re in love with me,” said Harry.

Draco closed his eyes with a small frown. Harry tried to smile, even though it was useless, because Draco wasn’t even looking at him. 

“Well, on that note,” said Harry. Draco chuckled lightly. 

“Yeah, go on, fuck off.”

“You should go to bed, too,” said Harry.

“No. I’m going to waste six hours on the internet.”

“See, that’s exactly what you _shouldn’t_ do.”

“Shut, up, mum,” said Draco, and Harry kicked gently at Draco’s foot before disapparating. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	15. Chapter 15

_DM: fine_

**HP: you’re getting a cat**

**HP: I’m so proud of you**

**HP: I knew you’d come round**

_DM: I’m not getting a cat!_

**HP: wow way to raise my hopes Draco**

**HP: really not cool**

_DM: again:_

_DM: you can get YOUR OWN cat_

_DM: no I meant_

_DM: fine_

_DM: I’ll see Michael_

_DM: if you think he’d see me_

**HP: oh**

**HP: er**

**HP: yeah**

**HP: he would**

**HP: that’s**

**HP: great**

_DM: unless you don’t want me to…?_

**HP: no**

**HP: I mean yes**

**HP: I mean**

**HP: you should see him**

**HP: I’ll give him your number**

**HP: that’s**

**HP: cool, good**

_DM: are you distracted at work_

_DM: or are you_

_DM: unhappy…?_

_DM: bc honestly I’m agreeing to this mainly bc_

_DM: you seem to really want me to_

_DM: and_

_DM: if you don’t want me to, I won’t?_

**HP: no no no**

**HP: no**

**HP: sorry**

**HP: yeah, work**

**HP: it’s done**

**HP: I gave him your number**

**HP: so. see you later**

**HP: ?**

_DM: yeah prob_

  
It was hard to put in words how ridiculous Draco’s onion routine was. Annoyingly, it was, indeed, extremely artistic. As Draco peeled the layers of his costume apart, he became steadily less ridiculous, until he was wearing a white spandex suit that he slowly tore off his body. 

It was like Draco, really. Funny on the outside. Serious at the centre. 

Ron teared up a bit. Harry wiped his finger under Ron’s eye to make fun of him, and Ron pushed him irritably away.

Draco didn’t know the other performers well, so he and Harry and Ron went to a nearby bar.

“Is this okay?” asked Harry, as they sat down. 

“They do mocktails,” said Draco. 

  
“It’s sort of like you’re already dating, isn’t it?” said Ron, when Draco went to the loo. 

“Yeah, except not,” said Harry, gloomily.

“He needs to make his mind up,” said Ron.

“I don’t know,” said Harry. “I don’t mind waiting.”

“You should. This is just sad. He’s leading you on.”

“He’s not,” said Harry, although Draco was, a bit. Harry was letting himself be led on. 

He wondered if he and Draco needed some space.

Draco returned from the bathroom, his hand landing effortlessly on Harry’s shoulder as he slipped past his chair. Harry thought about how it looked to Ron: the way Draco leant in close to Harry’s ear when he wanted to say something sly; the complete, rapturous focus he fixed on Harry when Harry spoke; his quick laughter, so close to the surface. 

“I’m going to be a bit busy at work over the next week,” Harry told Draco at the end of the night. 

“Rid our Albion isle of villains!” said Draco. 

“I won’t have time to hang out, much.”

“Thwart their evil plans!” said Draco, which Harry took to mean, Yeah, That’s Fine. 

  
And it was fine, sort of. He tried to text Draco a little less. Draco seemed to notice instantly, and texted him less as well. And they didn’t see each other in the evenings. Harry stayed late at work, instead. The way he used to. Which was fine. 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he confessed to Hermione at lunch, and that was something, wasn’t it? That even if Draco broke his heart, as Harry was increasingly convinced he would, Harry had started having lunch with Hermione, most days. 

“Well, you can’t keep languishing in unrequited love with your best friend,” said Hermione. “I think it’s smart of you to get a little distance.”

“I really do have a lot on at work.”

“Of course.”

“You think he’s in love with me,” said Harry.

“I…I do,” said Hermione carefully. “But I don’t know if he’ll… let himself be. I don’t want you to have to wait around for years while he tries to figure that out.”

  
When Harry asked Draco about Michael, Draco responded with an impenetrable wall of cat pictures. 

Harry let it go, and focused on catching the Hammersmith murderer.

Of course Draco Malfoy’s name was on the list. Harry was horrified that it hadn’t occurred to him before. He stared at the ratty piece of parchment on the desk in the murderer’s lair, and wondered when he had become so confident that he was past losing people he loved to violence. 

The lair was a big break-through, on a day of big break-throughs. The lab at St Mungo’s had confirmed that the third murder victim was Theodore Nott. The other two had also been Death Eaters, although Harry didn’t recognise their names. 

They were crossed off on the murderer’s list. Three names, slashed through with a pen, to show they had been dealt with.

Then, right beneath Theodore Nott: Draco Malfoy. 

And Draco wasn’t picking up his phone.

  
**HP: Draco**

**HP: Jesus Christ pick up your phone**

**HP: Draco**

**HP: oh god**

  
Draco wasn’t at his flat, or at the art gallery where he worked, or at the night club where he would be performing that evening. He wasn’t at Harry’s house.

“Harry,” said Bianca, “you need to calm down.”

“I am calm,” said Harry.

“It’s not going to help Malfoy if the auror in charge of finding him is running around like a headless chicken.”  
“Have you set up wards around the perimeter of Draco’s flat?”

“Ainsley’s doing them.”

Harry paced around his office.

“He murdered Nott and the others in his lair,” he said.

“Yeah. But the preliminary search didn’t turn up Nott’s face. He knew we were coming.”

Harry tried not to think what that meant— Nott’s face was missing. Preserved, probably, ready to be sewn onto the next victim. 

“Breathe,” said Bianca.

“Fuck,” said Harry. “If we just knew _when_ Draco had gone missing.”

“We still don’t know if he _is_ missing,” said Bianca. 

  
It was Ursula who gave them the first clue.

“He was nervous yesterday,” she told Harry. “And he kept checking his phone.”

“Michael,” said Harry.

  
It was rude to apparate into someone’s flat, but Harry didn’t give a shit. 

Michael and Draco were in the kitchen. Draco was pressed against the counter, and Michael stood so close to him that their shoes touched. Draco’s eyes were wide; he looked the way he used to when he took MDMA; dreamy and distant and black-pupilled.

Michael was tracing Draco’s scars with one finger.

“Draco,” said Harry. Michael looked up. Draco didn’t, his gaze was still fixed on Michael. 

“Harry?” asked Michael.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Harry.

“You weren’t,” said Michael. He didn’t seem uncomfortable or guilty. Harry wondered where Susan was. 

“Draco, I’ve been looking all over for you,” said Harry, and suddenly he realised in a great rush of feeling just how _relieved_ he was to see him, to have proof that Draco was alive, fine, protectable. “The Hammersmith murderer; he’s got you on his list. He’s been targeting young Death Eaters.”

“What,” said Draco.

“I’ve got aurors warding your flat right now.”

Draco looked utterly bewildered.

“What,” he said again.

“Sit down,” said Michael softly, taking Draco by the elbow and leading him to the kitchen table. Draco followed, tame and gentle as a lamb. 

“You weren’t picking up your phone,” said Harry. “I thought—”

“Do you want a glass of water?” Michael asked Draco.

“I don’t understand,” said Draco.

“We just found the murderer’s lair,” said Harry.

“He had a lair,” said Draco faintly. “Did he call it that, or did you call it that?”

“I guess we called it that,” said Harry. 

“And… he wants to kill me?” Draco seemed to be appealing to Michael. “But lots of people want to kill me, don’t they?”

Michael gave him a glass of water.

“People are fucked up,” he said. 

“Look, the point is, you need to stay in your flat for a few days,” said Harry. “We’re offering you round the clock protection.”

“Who else has he killed?” asked Draco. 

“It’s… it’s classified,” said Harry.

“Young Death Eaters,” said Draco. He laughed suddenly, high and clear. “My people.”

Michael knelt by him and took his hands. Harry felt stupid. Unnecessary. 

“Draco," said Michael. "Look at me.”

Draco obeyed him. 

“Random people don’t get to decide what you deserve. You had a trial. They acquitted you,” said Michael.

“Only because Harry—”

“Doesn’t matter. That’s how society works. _I_ don’t know what you deserve, Draco, and neither does the Hammersmith murderer, whoever he is.”

“Look, er, Michael, will you make sure Draco gets back to his flat all right?” asked Harry. 

Draco was soft and pliant. So agreeable. As if he’d be whoever Michael wanted him to be, no problem.

“Yeah, of course,” said Michael. 

“Thank you,” said Draco, finally looking at Harry. His face gave nothing away.

Harry was angry. He was hurt.

“Is Susan around?” he asked.

Draco’s blank expression didn’t change.

“She’s at her mother’s,” said Michael, with a knowing look. “She knows Draco is here.”

Draco tried to take a sip of his water, but his hand was trembling too much, and he spilt it down his front. 

“Oh, Draco,” said Michael, taking the water from him. “You’re okay, yeah? You’re fine.”

“Yes,” said Draco, “I know, I know, I’m fine.”

Harry hovered by the door. 

“Okay, I’ll just… go, then.”

“Harry,” said Draco, just as Harry had hoped he would.

“Yeah?”

Draco looked lost.

“I’ll see you later?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Harry, and disapparated. 

He went to Draco’s flat so he could oversee everything himself. 

“I’ll be stationed outside,” he told Bianca.

“I don’t know that that’s such a good idea,” said Bianca. “You’re a little… close to this case, Harry.”

“I don’t trust anyone else.”

“I really think Ainsley can handle it. As long as Malfoy stays within our sights, he should be fine.”

“I’m not leaving this up to chance,” said Harry.

Michael and Draco apparated back to Draco’s flat almost four hours later. Michael drew Draco into a quick, tight hug, waved uncomfortably at Harry, and left.

“Hello, everyone,” said Draco, to the various aurors who were still pottering around his flat, putting up defences. “Thank you for not letting me get murdered.”

“We’ll be leaving in ten,” said Bianca, “except for Harry, he’ll be staying as protection.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “Harry, can I speak to you?”

Harry nodded mutely and they went into Draco’s bathroom, which was the only space they could close off from the others. Draco turned the lights on and locked the door. 

“Um,” he said. He wouldn’t look at Harry.

“So, that seemed to go well,” said Harry. “You and Michael.”

“What?”

“Are you okay, Draco?”

“I’m fine,” said Draco automatically. Then he shook his head. “I’m, ah, a bit, ah. I have too many thoughts in my head.” He leant his forehead against the mirrored cabinet. “I want to get _out_ of my head.”

“Oh,” said Harry. “You’re craving.”

Draco nodded. 

“Is there anything I can…?”

“You think I’m a bad person,” said Draco.

“What?”

“You said. That time we kissed. At Zacharias Smith’s weird country manor party. You said, _‘You’re not a very good person.’”_

“Draco…” Harry was almost at a loss for words. Draco was in love with Michael. Harry was in love with Draco. The Hammersmith Murderer was in love with enacting brutal revenge upon the bodies of his victims. There was a lot going on. “…I was, like, twenty. I was _high_.”

“I always told the truth, when I was high.” Draco knocked his head gently against the mirror, grimacing. “I wish I was high _now_.”

“I don’t think you’re a bad person.”

“You’re straight,” said Draco.

“Literally, what the fuck?”

“You just want to experiment,” said Draco. “On someone who doesn’t matter.”

“Are you mental? I want to date you. I’m in love with you. You _know_ this.”

“How does he kill them? The murderer?”

“That’s classified,” said Harry.  
  
“Tell me,” said Draco, knocking his head harder against the mirror. “Just fucking _tell me!”_

“He cuts their faces off.”

Draco made a whining sound in the back of his throat and covered his face with his hands. 

“Anyone I know?” he asked. 

“Theodore Nott,” said Harry.

“Oh,” said Draco. “I think I fucked him once. I can’t remember. I was drunk. I always meant to ask him.”

“We’re going to catch the murderer. He’s not going to get you. ”

Draco nodded, although he clearly didn’t believe Harry in the slightest.

“Maybe I should get some drugs,” he said. “For in case he does.”

“That’s a stupid idea.”

“It didn’t hurt, when those people used to attack me in bars, because I was always off my face.”

Harry tentatively reached out to put a hand on Draco’s shoulder. Draco turned towards him as if he had been waiting for permission. He curled close into Harry’s arms, nestling under his chin. 

“I’m not a very good person,” he said.

“That’s not true,” said Harry, into Draco’s silky hair.

“I don’t know what to think,” said Draco. “I don’t know what I feel.” He pushed away from Harry, climbed into the bath, and drew the shower curtain so that Harry wouldn’t be able to see him.

Harry sat on the floor next to the bath.

“I’m sorry I said that,” said Harry. “About you not being a good person. I can’t believe you thought I still… of _course_ I think you’re good, Draco.”

“People aren’t good or bad,” said Draco, from beyond the shower curtain. His voice was muffled.

“I don’t know if you’re upset about the murderer, or Michael, or me.”

“I’m not upset,” said Draco, then laughed. “I’m a bit upset. I want to climb out of my skin. I want to drink. _God_ , I want to drink.”

“I’m so impressed that you’ve been sober so long,” said Harry.

“I’m selfish even when I’m trying not to be,” said Draco.

“Did you sleep with him?”

There was a long silence.

“He’s _married_ ,” said Draco quietly.

“It just seemed…” 

Draco did not interrupt him, so Harry had to find a way to end his sentence.

“Intimate,” he said. 

“I’m sorry I’m being so selfish,” said Draco.

“I don’t know if you are? I mean, I have no idea what’s going on in your head, to be honest.”

“I don’t either,” said Draco. He pulled open the shower curtain, resting his chin on the ledge of the bath so he could look at Harry. “I think I… I think we should… I can’t keep monopolising you like this.”

“We’re friends,” said Harry.

“I know,” said Draco. “That’s why I’m trying not to fuck you over.”

“Can we focus on that once I’ve caught the Hammersmith Murderer?”

“I don’t think you should be my assigned guard.”

“I’m the best, Draco. I don’t trust anyone else.”

Draco drew the shower curtain again. 

“I don’t know what I think, and I can’t think when you’re around. Or I can think _too_ much. I don’t know. I need space.”

Space. It kept coming back to that.

“Okay,” said Harry. 

“I like you,” said Draco, in a small voice.

“I like you, too,” said Harry.

“I’m sorry I’m such a twat,” said Draco.

“You’re not a twat.”

“You should have left me in the Room of Requirement," said Draco, his voice suddenly hard and burning hot. "God, I want a _drink_.”

“Draco…”

“Would you, would you just go? Is that okay? Because I’m driving myself a bit mad trying not to—and. Please?”

“I’m not scared of going out with you.”

“That must be nice. I’m scared of literally every option.” Draco sighed. “Please? I’ll text you if anything weird happens. You can leave someone else stationed by my flat. I just…”

“Okay,” said Harry, “yeah. I’ll go.”

He paused at the door.

“You need to be brave,” he said.

The shower curtains were perfectly still. Harry unlocked the door, opened it.

“I was never very good at that,” said Draco. 

Harry left. 

  
He was woken up in the middle of the night by Bianca apparating into Grimmauld Place.

“We fucked up,” she said.

The Hammersmith Murderer had Draco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Instagram and (newly) Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you're interested in seeing the books I've been getting excited about lately!


	16. Chapter 16

“He was so insistent,” said Ainsley.

“Of course he was!” said Harry. “He’s an alcoholic!”

“Well, I didn’t _know_ that!” said Ainsley. 

“Calm down, both of you,” said Bianca. 

“We don’t have _time…!”_

“It’s not wasting time to figure out what happened,” said Bianca. “So. Malfoy insisted that he needed a drink.”

“Not just a drink. He wanted a bottle of rum. When I said it wasn’t safe for him to leave the flat, he asked me to go buy him one.”

“And you _agreed?”_ asked Harry.

“Not at first! But he just kept _asking_ , and he was… persuasive,” said Ainsley. “And agitated. So finally I said I’d go. I can’t have been gone longer than five minutes! I apparated there and straight back again!”

The three of them looked around at Draco’s smashed flat. There was blood on the floor. 

“He must have had some kind of apparition tracker on the place,” said Bianca. 

“Did we check the lair?” asked Harry. Ainsley nodded. 

“It’s the first place I went. But it hadn’t been touched.”

“He must have another stronghold,” said Bianca. “Harry, I know you don’t like to use your connections at Mysteries, but…”

“No, shit, yeah,” said Harry, and sent Hermione a patronus. 

She and Ron arrived a few minutes later, wearing coats over their pyjamas. 

“Are you with the Department of Mysteries?” Bianca asked Ron, sceptically. 

“Draco’s a friend,” said Ron. “I’ve also contacted his parents, Harry.”

“Good,” said Harry, distractedly. He was explaining the situation to Hermione. 

“Good?” said Bianca. “We have enough to deal with without anxious parents—”

As if on cue, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy apparated into Draco’s flat. 

“Where is he?” asked Narcissa.

“We don’t know,” said Bianca. “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

“We’re going to have to spread out across London,” said Hermione. “I brought these tracking devices with me; they’re new. They’re matched with the knife prints found on the bodies. But we’ll need to physically scan through likely areas.”

“We don’t have enough people,” protested Bianca. 

“Dean and Luna will help,” said Harry. He paused. “And someone should tell Michael.”

“Harry,” said Bianca. “We can’t just _enlist civilians.”_

“We don’t have the time to follow the rules,” said Harry, and thankfully Bianca didn’t argue with him any further. It helped that he was the youngest divisional head since the 18th century.

Ron sent out three patronuses as Hermione handed out the trackers, and Harry explained the protocol for if they found anything. Luna, Dean, Michael and Susan arrived halfway through his explanation, and he had to begin again. 

“How long do we have?” asked Dean. 

“He generally likes to play with his toys for a few days before he makes the kill,” said Bianca, “but we think he might move faster this time because he knows we’re getting close.”

Michael was very pale. Susan wrapped her arm around his waist and squeezed. Michael’s lips moved as he said something to her, so quietly that Harry couldn’t quite make it out. It looked like _“thank you”._

Harry, Ron and Hermione automatically paired themselves into a group, and the search began.

They had a list of places to look; leads based on clues the auror department had uncovered throughout the investigation. The combed through London. Harry tried not to think. Ron and Hermione asked questions about the Hammersmith Murderer, and Harry explained everything he knew about his tactics. In a distant, impartial voice, he told them how the Hammersmith Murderer tortured his victims.

“He thinks he’s meting out justice,” he said, as they crept through an abandoned warehouse. “He tries to punish them in ways that reflect their own crimes.”

“What would that mean for Draco?” asked Ron.

“Poison?” said Harry. “Probably the cruciatus? He might throw him off a tall building, because of Dumbledore.”

“Harry,” said Hermione.

“We just need to keep going,” said Harry.

So they did. They searched and searched. 

By four in the morning, Dean and Luna had joined them. 

“We’ve checked all the places on our list,” said Luna. Dean wasn’t talking much.

Michael joined them at about six.

“I sent Susan home,” he said. “Her back was hurting.”

“It was good of her to come out,” said Harry.

They kept looking as a dirty morning dawned. There were only three places left on their list. 

The streets of Peckham were empty except for an old homeless man who grinned toothily at them as they went past. 

“It’s in there,” said Harry, pointing at stationary shop that was under foreclosure. “It’s a long shot, but it was one of the places Theo Nott visited on the last day before he went missing, so—”

Then he stopped talking, because the rattling metal door swung open, and Draco came staggering out. 

Harry stood perfectly still. 

Draco was bleeding from the scars on his face, which had evidently been traced over with a knife, although not too deeply. He also had a split lip. 

He lifted his eyes and spotted them. His gaze fell first on Michael.

“Draco,” said Michael, moving towards him. Draco only nodded wearily.

Then he saw Harry. 

He stumbled forward, pushing past Michael, and poured himself into Harry’s arms. 

“Shhh, sweetheart,” said Harry, practically holding him up. “I’ll take care of you.”

Harry had envisioned taking Draco home and tucking him into bed, but in fact they had to follow protocol. Draco sat, exhausted, in a ministry interrogation room, as Bianca took down his statement, and Harry paced anxiously back and forth behind her desk. 

“He took you to Peckham,” said Bianca.

“I’d never been to Peckham before,” said Draco. “I hear it’s up and coming.”

“Yes, fine,” said Bianca. “So then what did he do?”

“Made me drink something,” said Draco, and shuddered. They had already given him a general poison antidote, and the healer who checked him over said he’d be all right if he rested for a few days. 

“Did he say why?” asked Bianca.

“Mhm,” said Draco, vaguely. “Retribution.”

“You know that’s fucked up, right, Draco?” asked Harry, pausing in his furious pacing. 

“Try to keep it professional, Harry,” said Bianca. “Then what happened?”

“I didn’t have my wand,” said Draco. “He hadn’t searched me for anything else. He did a couple of cruciatus…es? Cruciati? What’s the plural of that?”

“I’m not that fussed about the grammar,” said Bianca.

“Is it grammar,” mused Draco, “or syntax? I never know.”

Harry left to fetch Draco a cup of tea. When he returned, Bianca was gritting her teeth, and Draco was still talking about grammar.

“The thing is, you lot should know, really,” he said. “About the plural of cruciatus. I mean, if anyone should.”

“What happened _next?”_

Harry had the distinct impression that Draco had been waiting for him to return so he wouldn’t have to repeat himself. He handed Draco the tea.

“Thank you,” said Draco, taking it. “That was very considerate. Next, ah. Well, are you familiar with burlesque?”

Bianca threw up her hands in exasperation. 

“No, no, that’s relevant, I promise,” said Draco. “You see, I’ve been working on this knight-in-shining-armour routine, and I happened to have some metal nipple pasties in my pocket—”

“Tell me you didn’t defeat the Hammersmith Murderer with a pair of nipple pasties,” said Harry.

Draco yawned and huddled around his cup of tea.

“They were sharp,” he said. “I pushed them into his eyes. He wasn’t expecting it, I don’t think.”

They had the murderer in custody. Draco had left him tied up in the stationary shop. Judging from the chaos within, it had been a pretty rough fight. Draco didn’t seem interested in describing it in much detail, however. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said sleepily. “I wanted to gouge out his eyes, he didn’t want me to gouge out his eyes, so we just disagreed on the principle of the thing, really.”

Bianca stared at him, open-mouthed.

“Was that callous?” asked Draco. “I can be quite callous; it’s one of my flaws. I didn’t _actually_ want to gouge out his eyes. I don’t know that I did, even. Did I?”

“No,” said Harry, “although his eyes are definitely fucked.”

Draco looked sorrowfully into his mug.

“Yes, I thought they might be,” he said. 

“You’ll need to find somewhere to stay for a few days while we look through your flat for evidence,” said Bianca. “Have you got somewhere?”

Draco looked at Harry inquisitively. 

“Yeah, of course,” said Harry. Bianca looked confused. “He’ll stay with me,” clarified Harry. 

Bianca muttered something about professionalism under her breath as she scribbled in her notebook. Harry ignored her. 

After Draco’s parents had spent a solid ten minutes touching his face and hair to reassure themselves that their son was indeed still alive, Harry interrupted.

“He needs rest,” he said. “We need to get him to a bed.”

“Yours?” asked Lucius Malfoy, with a curling lip. Draco cast Harry an agonised look.

“Yeah, it’s that post-murder-attempt sex, I’m really getting antsy for it,” said Harry. Draco laughed, although he cut himself off with a solemn expression when his father glanced his way.

“Come on,” said Harry. 

Draco kissed his mother goodbye, shook hands with his father ( _weird_ , but that was really only the beginning of the weird things between Draco and his father, so Harry decided to save it for another time), and took Harry’s elbow. 

They apparated back to Grimmauld Place. Draco was clumsy with tiredness; he kept banging into furniture as Harry led him to his bedroom. 

He didn’t say anything about the fact that Harry was clearly planning on sleeping in the same bed as him. He simply kicked off his shoes and climbed under the covers, still wearing his torn and blood-splattered clothes. Harry did the same.

He was too tired to be surprised when Draco pulled him close and wrapped his arms around him, so that Harry’s head rested on his chest. He did make a small noise, however, when Draco kissed the top of his head.

“We should get a cat,” said Draco sleepily. 

Harry breathed deeply into Draco’s neck.

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

  
Harry was awoken from a confusing stress dream where he was trying to find Draco but he couldn’t see because someone had taken his glasses.

“Waffles?” asked Kreacher, bending alarmingly over him.

“Gah! Jesus Christ! Kreacher, what have I told you about—”

“Waffles sound nice,” said Draco drowsily from the other side of the bed. 

“Don’t encourage him,” Harry told Draco.

“Waffles and tea please, Kreacher,” said Draco. “Have you got any chocolate spread?”

“Oh, yes, sir!” said Kreacher eagerly. “Waffles and tea and chocolate spread in fifteen minutes, sir!”

“And strawberries,” said Draco. 

“Of course, sir! Anything else, Master Malfoy?”

“Stop taking advantage of poor Kreacher,” said Harry.

Draco laughed quietly into his pillow as Kreacher protested that Master Malfoy wasn’t taking advantage of him, no, sir, on the contrary, Kreacher was delighted to be of service, particularly to a wizard of such high breeding—

“I’m awfully hungry, Kreacher,” said Draco, and Kreacher made his hasty exit. 

“You’re a bad influence on him,” said Harry. 

Draco pulled Harry down into a lazy kiss.

“Waffles, though,” he said. 

“Right,” said Harry breathlessly. “Waffles.”

Draco stretched. Harry sat up and put on his glasses. 

“I feel disgusting,” said Draco.

“Have a shower.”

“You’re supposed to tell me I don’t look disgusting,” said Draco.

“You don’t look disgusting,” said Harry.

“I don’t believe you. I’m having a shower,” said Draco, getting out of bed. Harry got him a towel and some clothes. 

“They won’t fit properly,” he warned. 

“I’ll make my peace with it over waffles,” said Draco. He leant slowly forward and kissed Harry again. 

Harry broke away.

“Er, Draco,” said Harry. “I get that you’re recovering from, um, a murder attempt, or whatever, but, er, this is sort of…fucking with my head?”

“Oh,” said Draco, his eyes darting anxiously around the room, as if he was looking for an escape route. “Do you… shit. I thought… do you not want to be with me?”

“What?”

“I,” started Draco. He ran his hand through his hair. “Shit,” he said. “I’ve been a massive idiot, haven’t I? I thought you—”

“I do want to be with you,” said Harry quickly.

“Oh!” Draco smiled and went to the bathroom door. “Lovely. Let’s do that, then.”

“Right. Only yesterday, you were all, My Heart Belongs To Michael.”

“Who?”

“Draco.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Harry stared at him. Draco bit his lip.

“That was a twatty thing for me to say, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“A bit, yeah,” said Harry.

Draco wound a silky strand of hair around his finger. 

“Let’s go for a walk after we’ve eaten,” he said. 

“Okay,” said Harry. 

  
They talked about silly, idle things as they ate the waffles and strawberries. Harry could barely taste anything. 

Draco looked good in Harry’s clothes. 

“Draco,” said Harry, after an hour. Draco was languidly trying to scrape the last slivers of flesh from a strawberry stem. “The meal is over.”

Draco’s hand trembled as he lowered the strawberry stem. He stared at the table.

“Is it? I suppose it is. Tea?”

“Take me somewhere in Wiltshire. We’ll go for a walk.”

“Oh,” said Draco. “A walk. Good idea.”

Harry rolled his eyes, but he didn’t say anything, because Draco was spacey and confused as they put on coats and walking shoes. 

Harry took him by the elbow.

“I know you pretty well, Draco,” he said.

“No, no, it’s fine, I have a plan in place,” said Draco, his fingers flickering the way they did when he was craving. “Are you ready? I’ve set a timer. Let’s go.”

Draco apparated them to a long, straight path. It ran neatly through the tailored fields. 

“A timer?” asked Harry.

“Mhm,” said Draco, “and when it goes off, we don’t have to talk about horrible things anymore.”

“They might not all be horrible, Draco,” said Harry. 

“The Ridgeway,” said Draco, nodding at the path with his chin and striding forcefully ahead. “It’s an ancient road. Bronze Age, I think. Figured it might take us places. All right, look, you know I’m a dreadful coward—”

“You literally took a man out yesterday, armed with nothing but your wits and a pair of nipple pasties,” said Harry, racing to keep up with him.

“—Dreadful coward, always have been,” said Draco, speaking almost as fast as he had that time Harry overheard him on cocaine. But Harry knew Draco was sober, knew he was just scared. “It’s one of my worst flaws, I think. Is that your first question?”

“Sorry?”

“Truth. We’re playing Truth. That’s my plan. Pretend we’re drunk at a party, if it helps.”

“It doesn’t help,” said Harry. 

“No? It helps me. My turn. Did you mean—”

“That’s not fair!” protested Harry. “My first question wouldn’t have been ‘What are your worst flaws’!” 

“Oh, sorry, I’m also a cheat,” said Draco, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets. “I wouldn’t call that one of my worst flaws, though, because I’m loyal to _people_. In any case, Mr. Potter, the judge has ruled, your complaint has been overturned; it’s my go now. Did you mean the things you said at my trial, about me being some poor deluded innocent, roped into things beyond my control?”

“Slow down a bit, Draco, your legs are longer than mine.”

Draco slowed his pace, although he still would not look at Harry. He had his collar turned up and his eyes fixed on the Ridgeway.

“I believed a lot of it,” said Harry. “I didn’t think you deserved Azkaban, so I said the things your lawyer told me to say.”

“What parts didn’t you believe?” asked Draco. 

“Nope,” said Harry. “It’s my turn.”

Draco nodded and waited patiently while Harry tried to formulate his question. 

“I love you,” said Draco suddenly.

“Oh, right,” said Harry.

“Just, ah, didn’t want you to waste a question on that one.”

“Cool, yeah, thanks,” said Harry, whose mind had gone rather flat. “Okay, so… do you still love Michael?”

He heard Draco draw in a sharp breath. 

“I think I would have said yes, yesterday,” he said. “I mean, in a sense, yes, of course I love him, because you can’t be so grateful to someone and _not_ love them. But am I _in_ love with him? No.”

Harry wasn’t sure what to say. He settled on,

“Your turn.” 

“Oh,” said Draco. “Well… what do you think I deserve?”

“Happiness,” said Harry, instantly. 

“Come on, Harry. You have to actually think about the question.”

“I have thought about it,” said Harry. “And it’s my turn. What changed? Yesterday, you didn’t know what you wanted.”

Draco paused, as if he was trying to form a sentence.

“I… I was so sure that my last thoughts would be about Michael. I was depressed about it. But, you know, I always used to think if I could just convince _Michael_ I was a good person, maybe I’d actually become one.”

“He does think you’re a good person,” said Harry. “Although I think you were right, anyway; people aren’t good or bad, like that.”

Draco knocked his hip into Harry’s.

“Well, when Ham got me—”

“Excuse me, _what?”_

“He wouldn’t tell me his name,” said Draco. “So I just called him Ham. He didn’t like it.”

“You sound like a nightmare to kidnap,” said Harry.

“Yeah, don’t try it. So, when Ham got me, it was strange, because I didn’t think of Michael at all. Not even once, all the way through. When I saw him afterwards, I was like, _Oh yeah, Michael exists.”_

They were walking so close together now that their elbows kept touching.

“So what _did_ you think of?” asked Harry, even though it wasn’t his turn. 

“You,” said Draco. “Just you.” 

Their steps had slowed. 

“And my parents,” added Draco. “Sorry. I still love them. That’s my question, by the way; how can you like me if you hate my father?”

“I haven’t really hated anyone since that time you took care of me when I was on MDMA at Zacharias Smith’s weird country manor party,” said Harry. 

“Do you think he inherited that country manor? I never asked,” said Draco.

“It was like… before, I saw in black and white, and after I saw in colour?” continued Harry. “Because you were so lovely to me. Just… lovely. And if _you_ could be lovely, then everything was a lot more complicated and variable than I had thought. And it’s harder to hate people when you know how complicated they are.”

“I’m not _keen_ on our friend Ham,” said Draco.

“I don’t hate him, though,” said Harry. “He was a war victim, yeah?”

Draco sighed.

“His muggle lover went on the run and was killed by snatchers,” he said. 

“Right,” said Harry. “Complicated.”

“My turn,” said Draco. He stopped and faced Harry. “Did you think I was handsome? Before the scars?”

Harry cupped Draco’s jaw with both hands.

“I mean, yes? I think you’re handsomer now.”

Draco’s eyes were wide and serious. In his pocket, his phone alarm went off. He fumbled to silence it, and Harry let go of his face. 

“You can have one more question,” Draco told him.

“Okay,” said Harry. “What do you want to happen now?”

Draco looked a lot the way he used to on drugs; lost and dazed and beautiful. But he also seemed vivid and awake in a way that he never used to, during those first blurry years after the war.

“I want to be yours for as long as you’ll have me,” he said. 

Harry laughed.

“Mine?”

“If you want me,” said Draco.

“Yeah,” said Harry. “I do.”

Draco smiled.

“Okay, then,” he said.

“Okay,” said Harry.

“I’m incredibly embarrassed by all of this, you realise.”

“Once a week, we go on a twenty-minute walk and talk about our _feelings_ ,” said Harry.

“We do?”

“Yes. It’s one of the healthiest parts of our relationship. Because the cat’s going to take a heavy toll.”

Draco bit his lip.

“I suppose I can do once a week, for twenty minutes,” he said. “If we’re not looking at each other.”

“Enough of this shit,” said Harry, “wanna fuck?”

Draco laughed.

“Yeah, all right,” he said. 

So they went home. 

* * *

**Ten Months Later**

  
_DM: ALERT ALERT_

_DM: SEC.-LIEUT. GODFREY PAMPLEMOUSSE MAY HAVE EATEN A RAISIN_

**HP: shit really**

**HP: also**

**HP: stop giving our cat military titles!!**

**HP: Draco**

**HP: is Mousse okay**

**HP: raisins are poisonous to cats Draco**

**HP: how many raisins d’you reckon he ate**

**HP: should I leave work early**

_DM: no_

_DM: vet says he’s fine_

_DM: vet also made some pretty snippy remarks about how other people don’t bring their cats in three times a week_

**HP: well forgive us for being WATCHFUL of our cat’s HEALTH**

_DM: we should find a new vet_

_DM: Brigadier-General Godfrey Pamplemousse deserves better_

**HP: Second Lieutenant to Brigadier-General**

**HP: that’s a hell of a promotion**

_DM: cat military_

_DM: the ranks are different_

**HP: lol I love you**

_DM: you know how Sergeant-Major Godfrey Pamplemousse makes us_

_DM: like_

_DM: 25% happier on any given day_

**HP: yes**

_DM: what if we had four cats_

_DM: would we be 100% happier_

**HP: this is a slippery slope Draco**

_DM: your house could prob fit_

_DM: like_

_DM: a dozen cats comfortably_

**HP: or**

**HP: you could move in**

**HP: Draco**

_DM: yeah I’m_

_DM: processing_

_DM: move in, you said_

**HP: yeah see I figure**

**HP: you make me 50% happier on any given day**

**HP: so if I see you twice as much**

_DM: diminishing returns_

**HP: your lease is up next month**

_DM: I know this is_

_DM: like_

_DM: fucked up of me_

_DM: but I honestly find it such a turn-on when you pull your auror sleuthing shit on me_

**HP: hang-over from sixth year**

_DM: yeah it’s like a pavlovian response_

**HP: so**

**HP: ?**

_DM: let me think about it_

  
It made Draco sad to see Dean, but Harry knew it made him sadder _not_ to see him, so he made sure Dean came to Draco’s shows every once in a while. Dean and Draco were quiet around each other; wistful.

“Memories,” Draco told Harry, on one of their weekly walks. “He was the constant witness to those years of my life, but he lost all the memories. And I lost his.”

“That’s sad,” said Harry.

“When I remember anything from then—”

“Eighteen to twenty-two?”

“Yes. Four years, and they’re just a blur of…”

Draco tapped his thumb against his fingers as they traipsed through the muddy fields.

“Does it make you crave to talk about it?” asked Harry.

“Yes,” said Draco. “Even to think about it.”

“Maybe it won’t always,” said Harry.

“It’s a shame, because a lot of the memories would be nice ones, if they didn’t make me want to, you know. Snort my weight in coke.”

“I bet you’ll be able to think about them, eventually,” said Harry.

“Well, not yet,” said Draco. 

  
Draco didn’t do the knife act so often anymore. He had other acts, just as ethereal, just as lovely, but not so heartbreaking. Harry went whenever he could. He loved his job, but he loved other things too: lunch with Hermione, pub nights with Draco and his friends, going to Mars with a crowd of muggle burlesque dancers, visiting Luna and Dean at their farm near Winchester. He loved lounging on the floor cushions of Draco’s studio, chatting shit as Draco designed costumes. 

There were a lot of good things to spend time on.

  
“Susan asked me to be godfather,” said Draco, as they walked along a winding stream. 

“That was weird of her,” said Harry.

“Yeah,” said Draco. “Do you want me to say no?”

“I think you’d be a good godfather. I love spoiling Teddy.”

“You know that— you know that Michael has nothing on you, yeah?” said Draco, hesitantly.

“I think I know that, most of the time,” said Harry. 

“But sometimes…?”

“Painful relationships are more, like, poignant? So they’re a bit more romantic, somehow.”

“Yeah,” said Draco. “I know what you mean. But I’d rather be happy than… narratively compelling.”

“You and Michael were narratively compelling.”

“I think so.”

“How long have we got left on the timer?” asked Harry. Draco checked his phone.

“Three minutes.”

“You can do what you want, but I don’t personally think it’ll make you happy to be friends with Michael.”

Draco stared off into the distance.

“You’re friends with Ginny,” he said.

“What I had with Ginny was less special than what you had with Michael.”

They walked on in silence. The alarm went off.

“I’m going to tell them I can’t be godfather,” said Draco. 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I really don’t mind,” said Harry.

“You do, a little.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want you not to do things because of that. You’d be a good godfather.”

“I’ve never loved anyone as much as you,” said Draco. 

They carried on walking, even though their twenty minutes were up. 

_DM: ALERT ALERT_

_DM: CAPTAIN GODFREY PAMPLEMOUSSE FELL OFF THE KITCHEN COUNTER_

**HP: is he ok????**

**HP: what was he doing on the kitchen counter**

**HP: he’s not allowed on the kitchen counter**

**HP: also what were you doing in my house**

**HP: I thought I wasn’t seeing you tonight**

_DM: vet says Colonel Godfrey Pamplemousse is fine_

_DM: and that cats fall off counters all the time_

_DM: and that his paw is not broken_

_DM: and also asked me to sign a waiver saying I wouldn’t come back again unless it was an emergency_

**HP: um how are we supposed to know if it’s an emergency**

**HP: that’s the VET’S job**

**HP: ffs**

_DM: I love you_

**HP: that’s so convenient!**

**HP: I love you too!**

_DM: gross_

_DM: I’ve turned your second-best guest bedroom into a walk-in closet_

**HP: you moved in**

**HP: ?**

**HP: of course you did**

**HP: why would you tell me you were moving in**

**HP: when you could just do it without telling me**

_DM: I plan to buy Art_

**HP: permission to have some say in the Art you buy**

_DM: permission denied_

**HP: fuck**

**HP: what have I done**

_DM: just to check_

_DM: you aren’t actually_

_DM: mad that I’ve moved in_

**HP: lol no**

**HP: I’m delighted**

**HP: this is going to be the fucking best**

_DM: yeah I_

_DM: I think so too_

That night, Harry watched fondly as Draco wrestled their spoiled, ridiculous cat to the ground in an attempt to trim his claws. _What's great_ , reflected Harry, _is that it's still_ _only the beginning._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap! Aylaar, I hope you enjoyed your gift, with a nice Harry the way you like him! Nilolay, your wisdom was invaluable, thank you for helping me get re-inspired midway through, and Tackytiger, thank you for talking things out with me!
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading and commenting, it is so interesting to see what people think as the story progresses, and it often actually changes the way I write in cool ways!
> 
> Do follow me on Instagram or (newly) on Twitter at @let_them_eat_books if you fancy seeing what kind of thing I read and get inspired by! <3


End file.
